Schwert und Feder
by RenkonNairu
Summary: COMPLETE Mytho chose Rue as his princess knowing full well that they both still had the raven's blood flowing through their veines, now it's comming back to haunt them and Fakir and Ahiru have to once again don the roles of Writer and Princess
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: A story's birth is a sudden event, the start a happy accident, the end the fate for which it's meant. Princess Tutu is not my story.

Vignette One: Einleitung

Fakir clenched his fist so hard that his nails bit into the flesh of his hand. Why in the heck had he decided to transfer from the ballet division of the academy to the literature devision? The obvious answer was to help him better develop his powers as a Narrator, but so far all he was learning was that you needed to count much higher than ten if you were trying to keep your temper.

"It is VERY well written, Mr. Fakir." The teacher slid the manuscript contained within a manila folder across the desk to Fakir. "But I'm afraid I can't give you credit for it. The story of the Prince and the Raven and all related characters are the official property of Herr Droslemyer and although he left the story unfinished, I cannot except an ending to it as your independent writing project."

"You have no idea how hard I worked to write that!" He rubbed his thumb over the scar on his hand where he had stabbed himself in an attempt to stop Drosslemyer from drowning Ahiru.

"Effort doesn't count if the department head thinks your story is infringing on any copy write laws."

Fakir fought heard to keep his voice from slipping into the cold, quiet and threatening tone he used with Mytho. "Aren't fairy tales public domain?"

"Not Drosslemyer's"

"Why?"

"They just are."

"Stupid Book Men." Fakir muttered under his breath.

"What was that you said?"

"Nothing, Sir." Fakir grabbed the folder containing the ending of the Princess Tutu anime and stormed out of the teacher's office. "I'll have something different by the next review session." he said before slamming the door behind him.

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Altor sat at the piano in the music room. He had been sitting there, in fact, for the past hour and had, in fact, been playing the same key for that hour. He wore a dreamy bemused expression on his face as if he were watching a story unfold before his eyes, a story that none but he could see.

"Rue..." he muttered and continued his single key rhythm.

His left brain told him he should be proud of himself. He had helped Fakir write the fates of every one in Kinkon Town and save them all from the tragedy Drosslemyer had chosen for them. Saved every one... saved Rue...

Fakir had saved Rue, all he had done was stand there and be useless. Useless! It wasn't fair! He was a million times smarter than Fakir! It was he whom did all the research, he who had taught Fakir how to use his powers he who had so many plans and ideas for stories that his head was ready to burst! But he couldn't write. Well he COULD write but none of it would come true, he couldn't Write (with a capital W).

His left brain told him he should be happy. Rue had found her "happily ever after"... with Mytho and he should be happy for her not jealous of Mytho.

Mytho!

His right brain canceled out everything his left brain had just told him. He wasn't proud of himself at all, he was jealous of Fakir whom could Write stories when he himself was also a descendant of Drosslemyer, and he hated Mytho. Most of all he hated Mytho. Mytho whom every one had risked their own lives and fates to save, Mytho whom was everyone's hero, Mytho whom Rue loved, whom had taken her into the Story with him!

He wanted to hurt Mytho. Wanted to make him suffer all over again, suffer in ways and intensities that Drosslemyer had never even thought possible. He wanted Mytho to curse is own existence. And he could, if only he could Write, if only he had the power of stories.

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Fakir meandered along the bank of Kinkon Town's lake. She hadn't been waiting for him at the dock where he liked to write and although he didn't exactly need her presence to write she did help in a weird psychological way. The trees began to thicken as he walked farther from the dock and it occurred to him that he didn't even know where along the bank she made her nest. He felt a pang of guilt at relying on her so much as his muse and yet knowing so little about her.

He knew she was was Princess Tutu, he knew she was also Ahiru and he knew that she was in love with Mytho. WAS. Everything he knew about her was now in the pas-tense. She was no longer the human girl Ahiru, she could no longer turn into Princess Tutu and... Mytho... did she still love Mytho? He had chosen Rue over her, he had taken Rue into the story with him instead of her... did she still love him after a betrayal of feelings like that? And if she didn't still love him, who did she love now -if anyone?

He smiled at the mental image of the little yellow duck that was Ahiru blushing over a mallard or some other water bird. That would be just like her to, to fall flippers over feathers for just another pretty face. That's all Mytho was really: a pretty face without a smile. Girls did seem to like Emo boys these days... But wait a minuet! He was plenty emo! and he wasn't that bad to look at ether! Not quite a pretty as Mytho, but he wasn't real, so why was it that no girl had ever -ack!

His thoughts were cut violently short by him tripping over a little yellow pile of feathers and crashing earthward with a SMACK. The little yellow pile of feathers as it happened was a duck, a duck called Ahiru whom had just been jolted from her mid-day nap by an idiot who was not watching where he was going and had failed to notice her sleeping in the only place along the bank where a human could tread safely.

"A-HI-RU!" Fakir seemed livid for some reason.

"Quak?" Fakir?

"You are such a ditz!"

"Quak quak qua quak" Ahiru knew it was pointless to try to say anything to Fakir anymore. Sense she was no longer human she could no longer communicate through speech. And sense Fakir didn't speak Quak and neither of them knew telepathy neither of them could communicate very well much to their mutual disappointment.

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The candle light burned low making it harder to see the page in front of him, but Altor didn't care. It didn't matter, none of it mattered. He couldn't get his stories to come true, he couldn't make Mytho suffer, he couldn't make Rue love him! All he could do was write silly little... fan fictions! He threw the quill pen into a dark corner of the room and scattered the papers from the writing desk.

"Pointless!" He shouted to the empty room. "Useless, unimportant nonsense!"

_Such passion in you._

Altor spun around fast enough to get whiplash. "Who's there?"

No one. There was nothing there but the empty room. But he was sure he had heard a voice. No... no heard... the words had sort of just entered his head without passing through his ears.

_I could give you the power that you seek. It would be easy for one with passions as strong as yours..._

"Drosslemyer?" He asked the darkness tentatively.

_Heh. No._

"Who are you then?" He demanded quite boldly now that he knew it wasn't Herr Drosslemyer.

_That's not really important to the story right now, is it? Let's just say I'm a plot tool offering you what you that which you desire..._

"What I desire..." Memories of Rue pressing her ear to his chest floated to the top of his mind like marshmallows in hot chocolate.

_For a price._

"What price?"

_Nothing to difficult, just hurt Mytho!_

**Fin **for now.


	2. Vignette 2

Disclaimer: To those who except their fate: happiness, to those who deny their fate: glory, to those who plagiarize: lawsuits... I do not own Princess Tutu or related characters.

Vignette Two:

Her chest expanded and contracted with the slow steady rhythm of her breathing as the little yellow duck sat on the dock fast asleep. Ahiru had taken to sleeping on the dock recently due to the fact that every time she fell asleep on the water she would end up dunking herself under, wrenching herself from her sleep in a very cold and uncomfortable sort of way. Fakir would glance down at her every now and then searching for inspiration. She deserved a happy ending, she had worked harder than any of them (himself, Mytho, Rue... Altor) and had asked for nothing in return. He had known that she wanted to stay a human girl, but without Mytho's heart shard of Hope that was impossible.

He wasted a few hours on doodling some familiar fairy tale archetypes such as the crown, sword, apple, rose, etr. but gave up when he remembered how expensive ink and paper were. That was one of the problems of living in a real world he'd discovered: things weren't simple. Example: when the town was still controlled by Drosslemyer's story he and Mytho had attended the academy together and that was that. But now he had to worry about tuition, cost of textbooks and Dinning Dollars for meals. Also, ink and paper in a real world are difficult to make and there for also expensive. Karon was a gifted blacksmith but he was still struggling to put Fakir through school and make ends meet for himself.

He sighed and put the writing tablet down on the ground. Ahiru stirred slightly as the movement, he picked her up and held her in his lap. "Sometimes I think I'd rather like to be a duck." He told the groggy yellow feather ball.

His words moved through her ears into her brain like a sloth attempting ballet. She was bolted awake when the meaning was finally processed by her slow firing neurons. "QUAK?" The exclamation was accompanied by a blush.

"Life seems so much simpler for you." He smiled gently. "My story was rejected again, I didn't tell you that. Tripping over a bird sort of caused it to slip my mind."

She looked affronted.

"I'd probably make a better duck than you." He cocked his head to the side and gave her a lopsided grin.

Now she looked angry.

Fakir tried to suppress a snicker beneath his hand. "I'll make myself the Knight of the Ducks! Forget 'Dark Knight', it's all about the Duck Knight!"

Now she was confused.

"Ah, you really are a source of inspiration to me, Ahiru." She blushed as he patted her little yellow head. "I just can't write what I need to yet. It's funny, you know... when I needed to write a story about Mytho all I could do was write about you." Another blush from her. "But now that I'm trying to write about you, all I can due is revise an refine the story I wrote for Mytho. Ain't that just Murphie's Law..."

Ahiru blinked her abnormally large blue eyes, she had completely flunked physics or was it philosophy, and so had no idea what Murphie's Law was. But it must be something pessimistic like -wait! Did he just say he was writing about me? Why would Fakir want to...? Well, he is a dear friend... but to alter the fabric of reality for her? That was taking friendship just a little to far! And she tried to tell him thus:

"QUA, QUAK QUAK QUAK! QUA-AK QUA!" But he just blinked at her in confusion.

He regarded her for a few moments after she'd given up before saying: "Oh yeah! You wouldn't know: Murphie's Law states that anything that can go wrong, will go wrong."

She sighed in defeat. If only they knew telepathy, or she still spoke english(/german/japanese), or he spoke duck. Their lives would each be so much easier.

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"Hurt Mytho?" Altor stood in his dark dorm room talking apparently to himself, or at least what would seem like himself to any other person who happened to barge into the room (no one would, however). He was in-fact talking to a mysterious disembodied voice that also seemed to be disem-sounded as well, that is to say that the words it spoke were finding there way into his brain with out actually passing trough his ears.

_You want to, don't you? You want to punish the man that stole the one woman you have ever liked, ever loved._

"Well, yes. But I was going to due that anyway..." He looked at his toes, it seemed strange to be looking down seeing as the voice had no eyes to avert from meeting. "How did you want me to hurt Mytho specifically?"

_Well, you could give him a paper cut for starters.Those are nasty... _The voice paused, Altor said nothing. _Then you could slowly work your way up to the people of his kingdom hating him and on until his own son eats his heart._

"He's got a SON!" Rue bore children? Rue's old...er? Old? Were what he didn't say aloud.

_He's got a wife, hasn't he? What do you think newly weds do? Shag. What do you think shagging results in? Children._

"It's been six months sense we defeated Drosslemyer and they went back into the story." Rue... a mom...

_Time passes differently in stories. Example: an author could spend two chapters recalling the exploits of a single day and only one day will have passed, or they could just say something like 'and the days turned to weeks, weeks to months, months to years and before they knew it the young prince had become a noble king' or some other nonsense and sixteen years will have passed._

"Rue's sixteen years older than me?"

_It was an example._

"Who wrote that? Fakir?"

_No one wrote it. The one who ended the story, Fakir you called him, said that the prince could live his he life as he chose. So he did. And now I want him to suffer. _

"Why?"

_That's strictly 'need to know' and you don't need to know right now._

"Rue's really a mom?"

_Yes, a good one to. Well, a better mother than Mytho is a father..._

"How do you know all this? Rue got old..."

_Once again, strictly NEED TO KNOW! And yes she got a little older that you may remember, but you're an author you can just right something like 'and although the years had weathered away Mytho's beauty and grace, the lady Rue remained untouched by time and as lovely as the day she wed her prince' or some such nonsense._

"If all this is happening with out an author then why do you need me?" Altor crossed his arms in suspicion.

_Only an author can take the characters out of the story. In the real world the suffering is so much greater, so much more...REAL!_

"So then..." he paused for thought. "If you're in the story right now, how is it that you're speaking with me?"

_A small hole still exist in the border between the story and reality in this town, that combined with your latent ability is what is allowing our conversation to transpire. _

"Who are you?"

_I am the one offering you exactly what you want: the power to control the world and gain the love of the woman of your dreams. That's all you need to know. That is, unless you don't want the power I'm offering..._

"No! I want power." His hand clenched into a fist. "Give me the power of stories!"

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Fakir slid passed Karon's forge on his way to the house, he didn't want to disturb his guardian seeing as he had a large order of horse shoes to fill, but he did want to see how the old man was doing. He poked his head around the door frame. Karon was bent over the anvil hammering away at one of the iron shoes. The sound reverberated off the walls in an almost poetic rhythm and Fakir was sure that if Mytho were here or if Ahiru could become Tutu one of them would find a way to dance to it.

He missed Ahiru's dancing, Ahiru's not Tutu's. Princess Tutu was more graceful and elegant but Ahiru just seemed to secrete her true feelings and personality when she danced. He missed that about her, her clumsy way she moved across the practice room floor, the way she always managed to trip over her own feet, all of it.

Karon paused in his hammering to wipe the sweat from his brow. Fakir left before his presents was noticed and continued on into that house that the forge was built off of. He cast the quill, writing tablet and ink well into a corner upon entering his room and flopped down on his straw mattress.

"It's no use." He sighed to himself. "I'm just as useless a writer as I was a knight."

He rolled over on the bed and pulled his hair out of it's trademark pony tail. It cascaded over his neck and shoulders and fell over his eyes like the curtain of a ballet theater.

"A useless knight who couldn't even die properly, a useless writer who can't even help a friend... what's the difference?" He pulled his blanket up to his shoulder and tried furiously to sleep and hope of a better day tomorrow and not lay awake and cure his own inadequacy in his sorrow.

**Fin** for now...

Thanx To:

Meow, Marry Me - For being the first to comment.

Evil Mytho Rocks! - For your complements.

Drosslemyer - For your insite.

And a Special Thanx To:

rynayetra - For Fav.ing my story and adding it to your Alerts

AnimeM22 - For Fav.ing my story


	3. Geschichte

Disclaimer: To be flung into a pit of despair from which there is no escape and all must suffer is true tragedy! It would also be a true tragedy if I took credit for Princess Tutu seeing as it is not mine and all related characters are the property of Ito Ikuko and the animating team at Studio Gansis.

Authors Note: It has come to my attention that I've been miss spelling Autor's name: Altor. I apologize for any confusion this my have caused in chapters one and two. His name will from now on be spelled: Autor.

Vignette Three: Geschichte

Mytho felt betrayed. Like someone had thrown sand in his eyes. Like another had pored lemon juice on his still fresh paper cut. Like his heart had been shattered yet again, only this time within his body so that each individual shard contributed it's own pain to his suffering. It seemed as if he couldn't do anything right. He peered down from the ramparts of his glittering white and gold palace his people were assembled there all with pitch fork or torch in hand, ready and waiting to deliver their insurgent justice to a king that did not do right by them. And there, standing in front of the mob like a conquering general, heals forward, toes to the side, arms crossed, was Hoffnung.

Mytho gazed at his son, clad in black with a twisted silver crown upon his head... Yes, he fit the part of self proclaimed Neo Raven quite well. Mytho sighed as a wave of guilt washed over him to crash on the sands of betrayal. That was his fault to: he had known... he was fully aware when he took Rue as his Princess and his wife that they both still carried the Raven's blood within their veins. Knew that if it was in their blood it could be passed down to their offspring. He knew this and yet, he had still taken her as his Princess, wife, lover and companion because... well... he loved her. What else could he say.

And Rue... Rue had stuck with him through all of this. Through all the pain and sadness, through having to watch love and her child make war upon each other. That was another reason why Hoffnung hated him. Rue had chosen Mytho over her own son. Mytho sighed again, there were only two options open to him now, neither one was ideal but it was all he could do. He turned away from the mob and headed for the stairs.

Rue was waiting for him in the entrance hall. He met her eyes before exiting, they eyes were shining with unshed tears and he felt another wave of guilt crash over him and his heart threatened to drowned in the wash. He had put her through to much pain already, back when he was taken over by the Raven's blood himself and now he was doing it to her again. Only now it was worse, now she had two sources of sorrow to weep over and I was all his fault. His fault because he loved Rue.

The mob gave a loud almost feral sounding roar when Mytho stepped out on to the expansive oak draw bridge that spanned a glittering silver and blue stream that served as a moat. And there was Hoffnung, directly in front of him now wearing a sadistic smirk upon his face that accented the black clothes and wicked looking crown. Mytho gazed into his son's face and saw his own, just as he seen himself reflected in Tutu's eyes all those years ago... Hoffnung's over all features were different of corse, his face was not framed by pearl white locks but of ebony that shone a dark red when light hit them and cascaded around his face in waves or fell striate only to curl up at the tips. He kept cropped short which gave him a wild look that the women must have found very attractive.

"Hello, Father." The smirk widened into a malicious grin.

SPACE

Autor leaned back in his chair and massaged his stiff neck. This Writing (with a capital W) was much more difficult than he originally thought. He hoped he was making the disembodied voice was happy, 'cause he was tired hurting and sleep deprived. He glanced over what he'd just written. Well, Mytho had certainly had enough emotional suffering, might as well give him some more!

He bent back over the desk and began again...

SPACE

"Hoffnung," he began, "you don't have to do this... we can just-"

"Oh, just shut-up!"

There was nothing else for Mytho to do then, he could ether give his heart freely to Hoffnung and have it be devoured and his kingdom ruled by darkness or he could seal his own son away. Both were tragic, neither would give Rue a happy ending. Happy endings didn't come from Princes or Kings, they came from little yellow Ducks and true friends... He thought of Fakir, of every one back at the academy whom had admired him, of Cat-sensei and most of he thought of Princess Tutu... of the little yellow Duck that had worn his shard of Hope and had saved him and Rue...

Well, there was no Princess Tutu now, his shard of hope was within his chest now along with the rest of his heart and even if it were apart there was no Duck to wear it for him. Behind him Mytho heard the massive gates to the palace creak apart, he looked back to see Rue step out.

"Rue..." Mytho began at the same time that Hoffnung said

"Mother."

Both men watched her, waiting for her to speak. To say something, anything that would save Mytho from tragedy or allow Hoffnung to ascend to overlord. "I..." was all she managed to stammer out.

"Mother, go back in side."

Rue didn't move, she just stood there trembling. Her bottom lip quivered as if on the edge of speech but no words came out. Mytho stepped forward to wrap her in his arms, he bent down and gave his last kiss. Not the sweet "happily ever after" kiss they shared at the end of the Tutu anime, but a much more passionate and adult type kiss. The kind of kiss lovers only give in the privacy of the bedroom.

"I'm sorry." He whispered in her ear when they parted lips. That was when her knees gave out, she collapsed to the ground and cried.

"Are you quite done yet?" Hoffnung was impatient. "Don't worry, she won't be sad for long. I've found someone to replace you for her. Someone whom, if he does it 'write' will make her forget all about you."

"As long as she's happy." Was all Mytho replied. He was facing his son again, this time with a smidgen of resolve. He drew his sword, the same shimmering silver blade with twin swans as the guard and a inlayed gold crown in the fuller (the part of the sword that's directly below the guard). The same blade that that shattered his heart, the same blade that had pierced the heart of the original Raven. Now he turned it against his own son.

"Can we quit it with the drama? Drawing it out like this only show's that you don't have the balls to actually do it." He crossed the distance between himself and his father. "Now then," He grabbed Mytho by the hair and pulled his face back, better exposing his chest. "Give me your beautiful, Pure Heart!" And he plunged his hand into Mytho's chest.

Rue screamed, the crowd that had simply watched in puppet like silence up until now gasped and blood spurted from between Hoffnung's fingers. A faint red glow could be seen as Hoffnung began to pull the flawless gemstone that was his father's heart from his chest.

"...no..." Mytho's hand closed over his son's wrist. "NO!" He put all of his strength into yanking the hand from his ribcage. He collapsed to his knees gasping as the blood pored from the open wound. His heart left open and exposed to the world cast an ominous red glow upon the scene. He pulled his sword to him and positioned it on the ground in front of himself. Hilt to the ground, blade poised to strike his heart, he looked up at Hoffnung. "I'm sorry I couldn't help you."

"NO!" Hoffnung's and Rue's twin cries were so loud, so passionate, so violent that they reverberated off the very fabric of their world, made the pages on Autor's desk tremble and made the sword miss it's mark.

Instead of shattering Mytho's heart the glittering blade only cut off a single piece. One shard of emotion that went ricocheting off the uneven wood planks of the draw bridge to land directly in-front of Rue. She picked up the shard and clutched it to her chest.

"YOU FOOL!" Hoffnung roared. He seized his father by the collar of his tunic and drew him up to eye level. "I need you're heart to be whole. It's useless to me in pieces, even just two." He threw him back to the ground. "Mother..."

Rue looked up to meet her son's eye's.

"May I have that, please, Mother?"

"Rue..." Mytho began weakly. "Take that t-"

"Shut-up!" (kick)

"Please, Mother?"

Rue didn't think, she simply ran. Not in any particular direction, just away. Far away. Away form the pain, away from the sorrow, away from the drama. Just away. Mytho's shard felt warm in her hands, still warm from his chest, or was it warm from the sweat gathering in her palms? She didn't know, didn't really care actually. Tears stung her eyes, she couldn't see where she was going but she didn't care. It was getting darker so ether night was falling or she was entering a wood. Mytho's heart beat faintly against her finger tips. She was almost ready to slow down, almost ready to stop and look at the thing in her hands, almost ready to come to terms with what had just happened. And then she tripped on a tree root and fell.

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Autor stopped writing when he finally noticed the quill was out of ink. His breath was short for some reason, his heart was racing, he felt flustered and all around strange.

"Rue." He gasped.

He scanned the page for his last mention of her. She was running through the forest and then... and then what!? The quill had run out of ink at that point but he'd kept on Writing (capital w) who knows what could have happened to her! She could have tripped and broken her neck, or been eaten by a bear or... or... or... all manner of horrible possibilities ran through his head at lightning speed.

"RUE!" he said again only this time it was a cry.

_Shut-up you fool! And stop over dramatizing!_

"Mr. Plot Devise, Voice!" Autor never thought he'd be happy to hear him again.

_Why did you go and shatter Mytho's heart?_

"What do you mean 'why'?" Autor crossed his arms over his chest. "The agreement was to hurt Mytho, shattering his heart was the easiest way to achieve that. Plus, it got him out of the way so I can take Rue."

_SHE'S A PERSON, NOT AN OBJECT YOU MORON! _ The voice seemed to shout. _And I need Mytho's heart to be whole!_

"Why?" Autor raised an eyebrow.

_Isn't it obvious by now? I thought you were smart. _There was a long pause in which neither said anything. _Bring Mytho and his son out of the story. Do it NOW! _

The last command the voice spoke seemed to echo in Autors mind in a none to comfortable sort of way. He sat back down at the desk and dipped his quill in the ink bottle. He had scribbled only a few sentences on the page when he heard the creak of wood behind him and turned to she the old grandfather-clock behind him open to reveal a man clad all in black dragging an unconscious Mytho into the room.

He threw Mytho to the floor unceremoniously. "Figured it out now, Writer Monkey?" He asked.

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Ahiru was a woken by a splash in the water knocking her under the surface. When she re-surfaced gasping and a little peeved she went to investigate the cause of the splash. As it turned out it was a woman, a woman with long black hair that fell in waves and curls over her face obscuring her features from view. She was wearing a long dark violet gown that flowed around her hips in the water. She also seemed to be sobbing profusely and clutching her chest.

Ahiru swam circles around her wondering if she was injured or needed help.

"Quak?" She ventured tentatively.

The woman looked up and Ahiru saw her face for the first time.

"Ahiru!" Rue exclaimed. She scooped the little duck up in her arms. "Oh, Ahiru I'm so glad I found you! I need you to use this again!"

Rue opened her hand to reveal, not a glowing fragment of ruby red gemstone, but instead a bloody and crudely operated on heart valve. Together duck and woman stared at the valve in confusion. Somehow, in coming to the real world Mytho's piece of heart had become a real piece of a heart!

**Fin** for now...

Thanx To:

Zenki379: for your feedback

samtheweebo: for the positive encouragement

James Birdsong: for his applause

Special Thanx To:

Zenki379: for adding me to their favs


	4. Feder

Disclaimer: I would LOVE to be the brain that created Princess Tutu, but I'm not... Princess Tutu and all related characters are the rightful property of Ito Ikuko-sensei's brain.

Vignette Four: Feder

**Bang Bang Bang**

Her fist hammered the door to the house mercilessly. A small yellow duck hopped around her feet wildly and quacking loudly, adding even more noise to the already obnoxious sound of knocking.

"Please, open the door!" Rue pleaded. "Fakir lives here, right? I need to speak to Fakir!"

**Bang Bang Ba- punch!**

Rue's fist had, this time, not impacted the solid wood door but the face of a middle-aged, very sleepy and very angry looking man whom was massaging a hery hurt looking jaw.

"Young Lady," he began but stopped when he saw her torn and soaking wet dress. "Are you alright? Were you attacked? Do you need help?" It was amazing how fast he shifted from Angry Old Man to Concerned Parent it was almost a complete one eighty.

"Please," Rue clutched the piece of heart to her breast all the more tightly. "I need to speak to your adopted son Fakir! It's very important!"

He regarded her with the type of suspicious look parents give to their children's love-interests upon their first meeting, only this look was more severe and lasted longer do to the fact that she had simply appeared in the night seemingly out of no where and he'd never seen her before in the town. At least he thought he hadn't, she did seem very familiar in a 'maybe it was a dream I had' sort of way. So preoccupied, was he, about why the strange woman confused him so that he didn't notice the little yellow duck follow her in.

"Karon, what was all the noise abou-" Fakir was standing in the kitchen door, his mouth hanging agape in shock. His shirt off, his dark hair surrounded his face in a cascading mist that would have been attractive if the person whom he wanted to find him attractive was the same genus at the moment. But she was not, and so his hotness when un-noticed. Probably for the better, too, seeing as how Rue was already hysterical. "Rue, what are-"

He didn't finish that sentence either, Rue had launched herself at him and wrapped her arms around his shoulders and sobbed into his chest. Fakir was ashamed to admit that the first thing that jumped into his mind was: 'I didn't realize we were on a hugging bases.' The second being: 'Did things not work out between her and Mytho in the story?' and the third was the one he actually said allowed: "What happened?"

The duck that had entered with Rue jumped on the table and began to explain, or rather began to try and explain but seeing as all she could say was "Quack" or "Qua" and all the humans said in turn was "Huh?" Or in Fakir's case: "Ahiru!" she gave up and hoped Rue was up to the task in her current emotional state.

As it happened, Rue didn't explain much. She simply said: "This..." and opened her hand to reveal the bloody mass of muscle tissue that was formerly Mytho's Shard of Hope.

"Oh! My goodness!" Karon exclaimed upon seeing the bloody organ.

Fakir took a pair of tongs from a rack near the kitchen stove and plucked the heart from Rue's palm. He held it closer to his eye for a better look, it was a sort of kaki colored thing with a peach-ish hue to it. He examined the smooth contours of the muscle before turning it over to see the jagged ridge left by the sword's blade. "Rue, what is this?" He finally asked as he placed it back in Rue's protective grasp.

"Mytho's... it's a piece of..." She cracked. "OH, FAKIR! You have to help him -them- you have to help both of them! I'm so useless! There was nothing I could do for either of them, nothing accept watch them kill each other! It's so un-fair! Why did this have to happen to us? Because we have the Raven's blood? It that it? Are we going to be cursed like this for the rest of eternity? I HATE THIS! I HATE FATE! I HATE DESTINY! I HATE DROSSLYMYER! I HATE STORIES!"

She collapsed to the ground sobbing. Fakir just stood there more shocked and confused than he first was when she had walked in. An equally confused but still capable of thought Karon knelt down beside her and offered some words of comfort that didn't work and said that she could spend the night if she wished and when she was feeling better in the morning she could tell them all about it. She agreed to this plan and followed him up the stairs to a spare bedroom.

A few minuets passed before he reappeared in the kitchen in which Fakir and Ahiru just starred at each-other.

"Alright boy," he said upon his re-entrance, "you've got some explaining to do yourself. I don't know what they're teaching you up at that outrageously expensive school I'm paying for or what you are doing at that lake you seem to always be at..." he eyed Ahiru suspiciously now. " But somewhere in between it looks like you got mixed up in something occult-ish. And I will not have it in this house!"

Fakir blinked, had Karon had just accused him of witchcraft?

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Autor stared transfixed at the mop of silver hair that was Mytho's head. It was longer than it had been the last time he'd seen him. Much closer to Fakir's length now, than what he remembered it being. It flowed over his shoulders and face to pool on the hard wood floor of Autor's dorm room. He couldn't quite see the face clearly but he was sure it was Mytho due to the fact that he was wearing the same royal blue tunic with pearl white swan feathers running the length of the collar and matching lighter blue tights he'd seen him in shortly before Fakir sent him back into the story. And now he, Autor, had brought Mytho back out again. He had started the drama, the tragedy all over again. He looked back up into the face of Huffnung with it's wicked smile.

"I think I made a mistake."

Hoffnung waited for Autor to continue. When he didn't he said: "Hope you're not planning to go back on our deal then." He began to preen the dark feathers that ran the length of his own tunic's collar and hem. "It would be very unfortunate if you did. Not just for you but for everyone who lives in this town..."

"What do you mean?"

"Well." He crossed the distance between them and ran his fingers gently through Autor's hair. "Like all creatures I need to eat, right?" He pulled hard on Autor's hair, yanking his head back and making his chest curve out. "And I eat people's beautiful pure hearts..." He began to unbutton the light blue jacket of Autor's school uniform. "And if you were to go back on our deal I'd be trapped here in this town forever..." He ran a finger over Autor's bear chest. "So I'd have to feed on the people here, starting with you of course, until there was nothing good left in your world." He kissed Autor's chest before releasing his grip on the terrified boy's hair. "So you'll help me get home, won't you? I can't go home without my father's heart."

Autor sat panting in the chair by the writing table. His chest burned where Hoffnung's lips had brushed him. He looked up into the lavender-pink eyes that were the same shade as Mytho's eyes when he was possessed by the Raven (although Autor had never seen him then) and knew he was serious. He would be like a plague on the town unless he was sent back, unless everything was sent back! Him, Mytho, Mytho's heart and... and Rue to. No! Rue was originally from this town, this world, surely she could stay! Yes, he would help Hoffnung get Mytho's heart, then send everyone back accept for Rue and she would stay with him. That's how he'd write it!

Decision made, he gazed unblinkingly into the lavender-purple eyes and said: "I won't go back on our deal. I'll help you get Mytho's heart, then I'll send you home."

"I'm much obliged. Now then," He kicked the unconscious Mytho in the ribs. "What are we going to do about my father? He's a bit conspicuous here in your room."

Autor thought for a moment before thinking of the perfect place.

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Karon was already awake and working in the forge when Fakir woke up. He didn't poke his head in to say "good morning". After the lecture he'd received last night about witchcraft and the occult Fakir didn't want to have to meet his eyes again just yet. Rue was sitting at the kitchen table when he entered. There was a pot of hot tea on the table and a full but otherwise untouched cup in-front of her. Ahiru was drinking the tea from a saucer to her right. The air in the room was heavy and he wondered if he should give Rue a few more minuets to herself before making himself some semblance of food.

"I need you to write another story for us." Rue said without looking at him.

Well that answered that question. He fully entered the kitchen and sat at the table across from her. She reached out to move the tea pot aside and placed the heart between them. Ahiru stopped drinking and waddled over to sit by the heart.

"This is Mytho's heart shard of Hope." she explained. "Mytho tried to shatter his heart again but missed and only this one piece broke off. But now it's got no power, it's just this." She poked the organ with her tea spoon. Fakir cringed when she put the spoon back in her tea to stir before taking a sip.

"Why did Mytho try to shatter his heart again?" It was an obvious question to ask and he had expected her to be prepared to answer it. He couldn't quite tell if she really was prepared or just had really good self control, he was just happy that she wasn't crying.

"It's all my fault." Her whole body was shivering as she put her tea cup down and it's scalding contents splashed over the kitchen table. "It's my fault because I wanted to have a baby, you see?"

Fakir and Ahiru blinked in perfect unison, although Fakir's blink was accompanied by a blush.

"But you don't look a day older than when you left. Six months ago!"

"He was so happy when we found out I was pregnant." Rue didn't seem to hear Fakir, she was starring into her teacup. "We would lay in bed sometimes with his ear to my belly, and his hair splaying over my hips... He grew it out, you know. His hair. I really can't think of a happier time in my life. Well, giving birth wasn't quite so happy."

She looked up to see it they'd laugh at her joke. Ahiru blinked in confusion again, Fakir just blushed some more. Never mind, she thought.

She gazed into her tea cup again. Yes, they were very happy back then. Hoffnung was the most adorable baby boy you could imagine and everyone who met him simply adored him and had only complements to give him and his mother. Of corse that could have been due to the fact that he was their crown prince and Rue their queen, but who's asking?

The trouble didn't start until she had started trying to ween him off her breast. He simply refused to eat anything you gave him, no matter what it was or how well mashed it had been. He simply wouldn't eat. But Rue and Mytho had absolutely no idea what to due.

One evening Mytho, in an attempt to get Rue's mind off their ailing child, had thrown a ball (or was it a masque?) Rue didn't quite remember that bit. An when they returned to their chambers later that evening to check on their son they found his nurse laying on the floor by the crib with her heart rip out and blood on the floor, the bars of the crib and all over Hoffnung's sleeping face.

Rue had become hysterical at that point. She Plucked Hoffnung out of the crib and wiped his face and hands on her pure white silk dress. Mytho tried to calm her, holding her and Hoffnung to his chest saying that everything would be okay and he would take care of it. All the wile his eyes were scanning the room taking inventory of everything that had blood on it or for any other reason had to disappear.

He had sent Rue to bathe Hoffnung properly and began his clean up. The bars of the crib were wood and were easily cleaned with the bloody baby blanket, bedding of the crib however had to go, along with the nurses body and Rue's now bloody silk dress. It all had to disappear. He had the coldest, most calculating expression on his face when he asked her to take off the dress and give it to him. The only other time he'd looked that cruelly strategic was when he was possessed by the Raven.

The nurse's body was warped in the dress along with the baby blankets and bedding. Mytho had changed into dark inky blue riding clothes (he didn't own anything black) and taken the body out threw the servants passage so no one noticed. Where he took it or hid it after that Rue didn't know, he never said. The next morning he'd gone to the head of house keeping to complain, pretending that the nurse hadn't been there when he and Rue had returned from the ball. And when no one could find her, they all chose their own explanations for her disappearance.

That same morning they sat together more worried and frightened than they had been when he wasn't eating at all. They both knew it altho neither said it aloud. Their son was a full blood Raven.

"Qua?" Both Ahiru and Fakir were getting worried. It had been a full ten minuets since Rue had said anything.

"Um... Rue?" Fakir ventured. "Do you want us to leave you alone?"

"Huh?" She looked up, tears peaked out of the corner of her eyes wondering if they should fall, she wiped them away with her sleeve. "No. I'm fine. Sorry, I was in the middle of an explanation, wasn't I?" She gave the saddest smile either of them had ever seen. "Mytho and I both still had the Raven's blood in us when we went into the story, remember?" The tears were back again, this time they did fall in crystal cascades down her cheeks. "Well, because of that our son is a full blood Raven. My son's a Raven and he tried to eat my husbands heart!" She berried her face in her hands and sobbed uncontrollably.

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"Well, what do you think?" Autor asked.

Hoffnung gazed up from the machine full of blank paper to the mass of gigantic cog wheels above. "This is where Drosslemyer did it?" He asked in haw (A/N that my not be the right spelling).

"Yep. this is where-" His sentence was interrupted by a rush of wind. When he looked back at where Hoffnung was supposed to be standing there was nothing but a single black feather.

"Well, what are you waiting for?" Hoff's voice called down from that cogs above. "Bring my father's body up here right now."

Autor grumbled something under his breath that this author will not repeat. He was becoming less and less content with his new found servitude.

Hoffnung gazed at the immense darkness that stretched out endlessly from the wheel on which he stood. "I like this place very much."

**Fin **for now...

Thanx to:

James Birdsong: You have reviewed allot of the same stories I've read, who are you?

Ducklin: I'm glad I could make you laugh and cringe at the same time.

Zenki379: Feed back is always good.

Evil Mytho Rocks!: Welcome back. I missed you in chapter two. Glad you like Hoffnung. I'm always afraid everyone will hate my OCs.


	5. Wieder Menschen

Disclaimer: If I said I owned Princess Tutu, Neko-sensei would make me marry him! So let me just say that Princess Tutu and all related characters are the legal property of Ito Ikuko-sensei's brain and no one else's.

Vignette Five: Wieder Menschen

Hope was shaped like a pair of fluttering wings. Wings that the people of the town had once used to leave the nest with. Wings that the prince had used to return to himself with. Wings that Princess Tutu must once again don to guide his heart.

SPACE

"That's a little dramatic, don't you think?" Asked an impatient Rue whilst looking over Fakir's shoulder.

"This was how I wrote it last time." He replied irritably. "I didn't hear you complaining the last time I wrote about you and Mytho."

She picked the heart up off the table. "Well, it doesn't seem to be working."

She was right. Nothing had changed about the heart sense he had begun that morning. He leaned back in his chair and ran his thumb over the scar where he had stabbed his own hand. Was he really just as useless a writer as he was a knight? Did he really have no purpose? Was his true self a useless dead beat that couldn't even help his friends when they needed him the most? When he had to write a story about Mytho, all he could write about was Ahiru. When he was trying to write about Ahiru, all he could do was revise the story he'd written for Mytho. Now he had the key to making Ahiru human again within his grasp, but he couldn't for the life of him make it work!

Where were the words, the feelings, her feelings? Her feelings flowing through his hand and into his quill to spill over on to the page. All he felt now was guilt, sorrow, betrayal and hopelessness. But why? He understood the guilt perfectly. He had the power to help his friends, all of his friends, but couldn't use it for some reason. The sorrow, betrayal and hopelessness was a mystery to him. They all seemed irrational and irrelevant to his current circumstances.

He sighed. When he had to write about Mytho, all he could do was write about Ahiru. Now he needed to write about Ahiru but a he could do was think about Mytho...

That was it! Just like when Ahiru was taken by Drosslemyer and her feelings had flowed through him, now Mytho's unconscious feelings were permeating his very being. That had to be it! To write about Ahiru, to write about Princess Tutu he had to write about Mytho! He crossed out what he'd previously written and began again.

SPACE

He was cold. Very, very cold. Like all the life's blood had been drained from his veins leaving nothing left to warm his heart from the guilt and sorrow that threatened to claim it. He had tried so hard, tried to save the child that he couldn't help, couldn't even understand. And save him from what exactly? Himself? Raven is what he is. It was what he was born. He wasn't like himself or Rue, whom had been corrupted by Raven's blood. His son was Raven by birth and Raven by nature.

Was this their fate then? To constantly battle his own child in an eternal dance of good versus evil?

SPACE

Fakir leaned back in his chair and sucked in air between his teeth. Mytho sure had gotten Emo since he'd last seen him. That had to change.

SPACE

He had fought Raven's before. The one in the Tutu anime had not been the first. He had never believed it would be the last, but he did believe that he would triumph over any others whom dared to rise and challenge him again. For his will was as strong as theirs' and his kingdom as great. No Raven would have power over him. Never again! Never!

A warm light spread over his whole body. A soft ruby glow that started at his center and moved slowly to fill his ribcage, climbed his shoulders into his arms and to the fingers beyond, trickled down his legs to pool in his toes and finally to condensate into his skull.

He was aware of things now. Things outside himself. He knew he was hanging, he could feel thin wires cutting into the flesh of his wrists and elbows, his feet touched nothing but air, he was missing one toe shoe and all around him was the sound of beating like a heart. Or was it ticking like a clock? That bit of his cognition was still a bit fuzzy. He slowly, ever so slowly began to open his eyes to see where...

SPACE

"Fakir you did it!" Rue's cry of jubilation yanked him from his trance like state of writing. She held up a small oval shaped stone the color of spilled blood complete with gold chain to wear around the neck. "You restored Hope!"

He was glad, of course. But he wished she had waited a few sentences longer to snap him out of it. He was so close to finding out where Mytho was.

She draped the pendant around Ahiru's little duck neck and stood back. The room filled with shimmering pink and transparent shojou sparkles and when they had all finally dissipated Fakir's head was down on the table with his arms wrapped around his head. Though muffled through his sleeves, Rue thought she heard him say "I forgot about that." Or something like it.

Where one the was a duck sitting on the kitchen table, there was now a very happy and very naked human girl.

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He slowly, ever so slowly began to open his eyes to see where he was.

The first thing he saw was darkness. Inky, black and deep. So deep in fact that he wondered if he'd even opened his eyes at all. The his pupils adjusted to the gloom and hi found himself suspended above a massive cog wheel by thin silvery white threads. All around him were man sized puppets made of flat wood planks cut in the shapes of arms, heads, torsos and legs. No two puppets were alike but all were suspended by the same silvery white threads that he was.

All accept for one that lay prostrate on the wheel beneath him. This puppet, he supposed, was the one that had been cut down to make room for him.

"Where am I?" He asked the darkness.

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He felt like quite the fool indeed. Forgetting about that particular part of Ahiru's transformation. And how could he have? Those few glimpses of her... those flashes of skin not touched by the light of day... the innocent curves of her tiny frame... were those not the things he thought of when he was alone? Alone with himself and his imagination. His thoughts of her.

He sighed deeply and leaned meaningfully against the door to his room. The room that now contained within it the very naked Ahiru and the very patient (but becoming less so by the minuet) Rue.

"What about this one?" He heard Rue's irritated voice drift through the wood door. He wondered if it was a good idea to let Ahiru barrow his clothes. He also wondered if it was a good idea to leave her and Rue alone in his room to pick them out. He didn't have anything to incriminating to hide. Although he had nearly had a heart attack earlier, when Ahiru's scream had pierced the wood of the door and impaled his ears with the words: "EW! FAKIR'S UNDERWEAR!"

He had nearly committed suicide right then and there. It would have been better than living with the imbarrasment. But Rue had calmed Ahiru down and told her things about living with Mytho that Fakir sympathized with her for.

After that though, he had quickly taken a mental inventory of any other incriminating items he might have left in his room and where they were located. He sighed in relief when he remembered that the nude sketches one of the boys in the Drawing division of the school had sold him were safely tucked away under his straw mattress and the girls had no reason to go under there.

"It's no use Rue." Ahiru's sweet voice drifted through the door to dance in his ears. "All of Fakir's clothes are to big on me."

"Stop complaining and put this one on."

There was the sound of ruffling fabrics and muffled indignations and finally the door opened to reveal a harassed looking Ahiru and an exhausted Rue.

She was right, his clothes were to big on her. Only the tip of her big toe was visible through already rolled up black slacks, the belt that kept them from slipping down her hips was pulled so tight that Rue had, had to cut a new hole for the buckle. The dark blue shirt she wore slipped so low down her left shoulder that it threatened to expose one small breast. The image of her would have been very comical actually, that is if it didn't make his mouth water. Which it did.

"Well, Fakir, what do you think?" Rue placed her hands on Ahiru's shoulders.

"F-fine." He stammered. He was fighting hard to suppress the urge to tear his clothes off her.

"See, Ahiru?" She gave the pinkish-orange haired girl a reassuring pat on the back. "Nothing to worry about."

Ahiru simply blushed a light, modest blush and pulled the sleeve of the shirt up over her shoulder only to have the right one slip down in it's stead.

Fakir balled his hand into a fist and bit his nails deep into the scar on his palm to keep the blood in his head and not let it rush down to where it wanted to be at that moment. He was surprised at himself. Surprised at how much of a perv. he'd become in the last six months. He wasn't quite sure what to do with the human Ahiru, now that he finally had her back. Not knowing what to do or what to say, he asked one of the questions he'd been wondering for so long.

"Do you still love Mytho?"

Rue looked insulted.

Ahiru didn't answer. She actually didn't know herself.

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Hoffnung pulled the blue jacket over the white shirt of his new school uniform. He was really very exited. He'd never bee to school before. All his learning was from private tutors, but that had stopped when he had started eating them so he was quite happy to attend a place of learning. A place full of young and beautiful Pure Hearts to feed on.

He spun around _en pointe _in front of the mirror. "What do you think, Autor?" He asked his very disgruntled new room mate.

"Fine." Autor didn't even look at him. He was lying down in bed with the blankets drawn up over his head. His glasses laid folded on the bedside table between their twin beds. "You look fine."

"I can't wait until tomorrow. Can't you?"

Autor groaned in annoyance under his blanket.

"I wonder what I should have for breakfast..." Hoffnung continued musings allowed. "My a blond or a red hear... Oh! A brunette. I like brunettes, they always have such beautiful dreams. Autor, write a pretty brunette ballet student into the story for my breakfast tomorrow." He ordered.

"I can't write anything if you don't let me sleep!"

"Fine. But I want a brunette ready for me in the morning or else-" He licked his lips menacingly. "- I might have to take your heart instead." It had no effect, Autor's head was still concealed by the blankets.

**Fin **for now...

Thanx to:

Zenki379: I keep my chapters short 'cause I have ADD and don't like to read fics with long chapters.

Derrick Hansen: It won't mold.

James Birdsong: A boy who likes Princess Tutu! And is from my state! Meow! You MUST marry me!

Saris Yui: I'm glad you like it.

Evil Mytho Rocks!: I think you mean ch. 5 (unless you're only reviewing chapters with even numbers now).

Special Thanx to:

Saris Yui for adding me to her favorites and her Story Alert list.

(A/N-PS) Do you guys think I update to often?


	6. Vignette 6

Disclaimer: Princess Tutu and all related characters are the property of Ito Ikuko-sensei and Sato Junichi-sensei.

Vignette Six:

Autor sat al alone at his table in the dinning hall. Hoffnung had woken him up earlier that morning to write him some breakfast into existence. The disgruntled Autor had groggily scribbled a few lines on a pice of scrap paper about some girl in the town and then gone back to bed, not even bothering to watch Hoffnung leave through the window. Now he sat alone at his table in the dinning hall wondering if helping Hoffnung was really the best decision he could have made.

He watched two girls from the ballet division walk by fully immersed in their conversation. He wondered if one of them would be next. Would get their heart stolen and eaten by the Raven that he had brought into this world. A wave of premature guilt washed over him. Hoffnung would be eating his class mates, friends, well, people he knew. He didn't really have any friends, most of his fellow students found him to be quite the egotist. But he knew these two girls. Their names were Pike and Lillie or was it Pique and Ririe? Maybe he didn't know them after all.

"You're not eating." He nearly jumped at the sound of Hoffnung's voice. The Raven boy clad in school uniform glided out from behind his chair to take one up of his own facing Autor.

"I guess I'm not as hungry as I thought." He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose.

"You should eat, keep up your strength." He smiled. "You can't Write if you're starving."

Autor poked at the croissant on his plate. It had suddenly gotten less appetizing now that Hoffnung was sitting across from him. But he recognized a order when he heard one. He'd given Fakir and random people in the library enough of them to know one when he heard it. He picked the french roll up off his plate and bit into it sparingly.

"Do you know why humans are a people of hope?" Hoffnung was saying. "Because you make things like croissants and pastries. Especially the pastries. You make something of astounding beauty, carefully decorated, fragile, lovingly, knowing that the person who receives it will only appreciate it for a few moments before they devour it. In that we have something in common, humans and I."

Autor didn't know what to say to this so he just took another bight of croissant.

"Well, I've got a ballet aptitude and placement test to get to." He stood up. "It would be a terrible shame if the Prince of the Ravens was put in the remedial ballet class 'cause he was late." He smiled without crinkling his eyes and left.

Autor swallowed the last of his croissant.

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Huff Huff Huff

"Grr! I've never been late before!" Fakir panted as he, Ahiru and Rue ran to make it the the Academy on time.

"Neither... have... I." Rue huffed behind him. She looked like she was ready to collapse. She may be a prima ballerina, but that didn't make her an athlete and she was by far the slowest member of the trio.

"Relax guys." Ahiru was jogging at the head of formation at what was probably a light pace for her. "I've been late loads of times! All they do is make you clean the classrooms after their done and now we don't have to worry about marrying Neko-sensei because he turned back into a cat." She smiled a goofy little smile that none could see from behind her. It would be allot nicer to not have to worry about Neko-sensei marring her.

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The teacher applauded fanatically.

"That was wonderful, Mr. Hoffnung!" Was he actually crying. "I've never seen a student with so much talent. You truly must have a calling for this art!" Yes, he was also crying. "Your passion, the power and drama you convey, you are a prodigy! Your parents must be so proud!"

Hoffnung bit the inside of his cheek to keep from replying to that last statement. "Thank you." he managed.

"Well, there were two others who were suppose to be here today, but..." He glanced around the ballet studio. "But it seems that they were unable to make it."

Just then, as if the moment was scripted, the double-doors to the studio swung open wide to reveal two girls clad in ballet tights and leotard, doubled over and panting. Hoffnung started when he recognized one of them as his mother. It took him a moment because he'd never seen her dressed so commonly before, but it was her, no mistake about that. Her wavy raven black hair was pulled up in a tight bun and she was wearing a rose red leotard with tights the same color as her skin so that it looked like she wasn't wearing anything under the leotard at all.

The second girl he was ready to ignore. She was obviously a peasant, with a plain and simple face toped with orangeish -pink hair that stuck up in front and reminded him of a duck's feathers. Her clothing was nothing special either. She was wearing a simple white leotard and matching white tights. Nothing special.

"Sorry we're late." The plain one stood at attention. "It was all my fault."

Hoffnung nearly gasped. There, around the girl's neck was a shard of his father's heart! The shard of hope. So this... girl was Princess Tutu. The Princess Tutu that had helped his father defeat the original Raven. She didn't look that threatening. She didn't even look that smart. He fought the urge to just walk up to her and rip the pendant from her neck. It would be so easy. He'd take the shard from her, just walk up and yank it from her neck, then rush away to the tower of cog wheels where Mytho was strung up on puppet threads and unite his heart and then eat it. And that would be it. The story would end.

He took a step toward her.

"No, we're both late, we should both be punished." Rue stepped directly in-front of the girl who was Princess Tutu, her eyes boring into him, but she addressed the teacher. "A good disciplinary doesn't care who's fault it was, so long as all parties involved are held accountable."

Hoffnung chewed on the inside of his cheek. She had known what he was going to do, probably before he did, she knew him so well. And she had successfully and subtly placed herself as a shield between himself and Princess Tutu, or more accurately, between himself and the shard of Hope that would make this... this peasant Princess Tutu.

"Well spoken." Said the oblivious teacher. "You're a very responsible young lady Miss..."

"Rue." She supplied. Though 'young' was not the word she would have used to describe herself.

"Miss Rue." The teacher finished. "And so you must be the other transfer student, Ahiru."

"Y-yes." She stood at attention.

"You're here for your ballet aptitude and placement test, so let's start with you, and maybe give Miss Rue a chance to catch her breath. She looks like she's about to drop."

And she did. What had Princess Tutu, Ahiru, done to her. Hoffnung watched his mother walk over to the window that served as a wall and sit down on the studio floor. She looked completely exhausted and it seemed like she could collapse at any moment. He walked over to sit by her.

"Where's your father?" she whispered before his butt even touched the floor.

"Safe." Was his only reply.

"From whom?"

"Just safe...for the moment."

He watched Ahiru begin her dance. Or rather, he watched Ahiru begin her attempt at a dance. She was by far the least graceful thing he'd ever seen. She was out of time with the piano sonata she was dancing to (number 11 by Mozart) and her movements were spastic and awkward. He couldn't believe that this uncultured, untalented dunce was THE Princess Tutu! It couldn't be. It was impossible. Why was his mother allowing such a shameful wretch keep one of the precious shards to his father's heart?

"How can I trust you, Hoff-chan?" Rue was speaking again.

"I'm your son."

"You tried to kill your own father."

"Not kill." He corrected her. "Never kill. Just eat. Raven's gotta eat, don't they? If I ate father's heart I would gain immortality. I could live healthy and happily for ever. Don't you want me to be healthy, mother?"

Rue didn't know how to respond to that. How to tell Hoffnung that , yes, she wanted him to be healthy. Always, form the moment he was born, she wanted him to be healthy. Healthy and happy. But not at the expense of her husband's heart. Or anyone else's for that matter. She wanted Hoffnung to find a way to break the Raven's cure and become human, become the Prince he was meant to be. Not the monster he was now.

Princess Tutu, the girl Ahiru, tripped.

"Thank you, Miss Ahiru." Said the teacher, his face in his hand. "That will be quite enough."

She bowed to him and walked over to sit next to Rue.

"Miss Rue, are you ready to give your performance?"

"Yes." She stood.

With Rue no longer between them, Princess Tutu turned to address Hoffnung. "Hi, I'm Ahiru." She gave him a goofy smile. The kind that made the eyes squint into little anime style arches and she laughed an awkward open mouthed laugh.

"Pleased to make your acquaintance." He forced himself to say. He scooted ever so much closer to her. "That is a beautiful necklace you're wearing, Miss Ahiru." He tried to sound as casual as possible.

"Thank you." She put a hand to the stone. "It's a very precious thing."

He scooted closer. "Is it now? And why is that, I wonder?" Closer.

"Well, you see," She looked up to meet his eyes. Lavender eyes with tones of pink. The same eyes that Mytho had when he was being controlled by the Raven's blood. The same color, the same shape, the same gigantic, anime huge eye lashes. Mytho's eyes set in Mytho's face, or a copy of Mytho's face at least. She had looked into those eyes so often as Princess Tutu, seen herself reflected in them. Just as she saw herself reflected now. "...Mytho?" she breathed.

Hoffnung moved back instantly. "No."

"You're not Mytho." It was a statement, not a question.

"No." He said again.

"You're there son. You're Hoff-chan."

"Do not address me so informally."

"Why did you try to take Mytho's heart?" She looked so sweet and concerned, he wanted to tear that gentle face off. "He's your father, don't you love him?" Now it was her turn to scoot closer to him.

"No." He pulled away.

"Yes you do, he raised you. You must love him somewhere deep down." Closer. "Your heat must be in such turmoil right now." Closer.

"I don't have a heart." Farther away.

"Yes you do. Why don't you tell me how you're feeling?"

"That was splendid, Miss Rue!" The teacher had his hands clasped to his chest directly over his heart. "To think that two students as gifted as you and Mr. Hoffnung are attending my school..." He smiled up at the sealing. "... It brings my hear such joy!"

"You must have a very Pure Heart, then." Hoffnung said without thinking. He realized his mistake the moment both Rue and Ahiru's eye fixed themselves on him. "You know, 'cause they say that Pure Hearted people can appreciate the arts the most." He tried desperately to fix his error.

"Sensei," Rue addressed the teacher. "Don't you have to file our student enrollment forms?"

"Oh, yes!" He started. "Thank you, Miss Rue. You are such a responsible young lady." He turned to leave. Half way through the door he stopped and said. "Oh yes, you and Miss Ahiru were late this morning. I understand that this is your first day, however, that does not excuse you both from punishment. You both shall be cleaning this room as punishment." He left.

Once the teacher was safely out of the room Rue rounded on Hoffnung. "I want to know where your father is. And I want to know NOW!"

Hoffnung inched back pressing himself tight against the studio window. Monster Raven though he may be, he was still terrified of him mother. "He's inside the story." He said truthfully.

"Well, obviously." She placed her hands on her hips with a huff. "Where in the town are you keeping him?"

"He's not in the town." He looked up into his mother's eyes and smiled a wicked, villainous smile. "He's as near or as far as the writer's quill."

Rue struck him across the cheek.

"Rue-chan!" Ahiru gasped.

Rue stood there, shaking in anger. Her eyes were glistening with unshed tears. "I just don't understand you any more!"

Hoffnung stood. "That's fine. It's better that way." He brushed past her towards the door. "If you don't understand me, you can't predict my next move. I'll see you around, mother." He opened the studio door. "Princess Tutu!"

"Y-yes!" Stammered Ahiru.

"I want that shard of my father's heart." The door slammed shut, leaving Rue and Ahiru standing in silence in the empty ballet studio.

**Fin** for now...

(A/N: Sorry this took so long. I've been staying at my Grandmother's all week and she doesn't have internet, so I couldn't get this one to you sooner. But here it is now! Chapters six and seven ready and uploaded just for you! Hope you like them. Chapter seven is my personal favorite so far. Please read and review. The "special thanx" to my readers will be featured at the end of ch. seven seeing as I'm up loading them at the same time.)


	7. The Flower Maiden

Disclaimer: I don't own Princess Tutu. Well, I do own the DVDs but not the Anime. That is the property of studio Gansis and Ito Ikuko-sensei.

Vignette Seven: The Flower Maiden

Freya danced in her garden. With a watering can in hand she pirouetted between the rows of flowers sprinkling the crystalline drops as she went. Hoffnung passed her by massaging his throbbing cheek. He trod over one of the flowers, completely oblivious to it's fragile existence.

"Oh, no!" Exclaimed the blond ballerina. She rushed over to the crushed flower beneath the confused Hoffnung's foot. Freya knelt down beside the flattened flower and looked up at the one whom had crushed it with big shinning eyes. "How could you? To kill something so delicate and small..."

Hoffnung didn't hear her. He was mesmerized by the purity of her heart. To care so much about something so small and pointless as a plant... the purity of her heart would be enough to sustain him for well into the end of the week. He knelt down beside her and took her hand in his.

"I'm truly sorry." He began. "I was preoccupied by a personal problem and wasn't paying attention to where I was going. I meant to cause you no distress." He brought her hand up to his mouth and brushed his lips against it in a gentlemanly kiss.

A bright red blush spread over the whole of her face. He suppressed a smile and stood, and helped her to her feet in turn. "I'm Hoffnung." He introduced himself.

"Freya." She replied, still blushing.

"Freya." He repeated her name like a gentle caress. "You are by far the most beautiful flower here."

She blushed more profusely.

"Ah, she blushes." He teased her. "But it's true. You have such a beautiful Pure Heart, to care so much for the flowers as you do. Your boyfriend is a very lucky man."

"Oh, I don't have a boyfriend." She said a little to quickly.

"Really?" His evil smirk was mistaken for a humorous one. "Why is that? You are so beautiful and so sweet."

"I... well I..." Freya was at a loss for words.

"I could love you." His voice was flat, quiet, mesmerizing, hypnotizing. "Just say you love me. Love me and only me and hate everyone else."

"Hoffnung." Now it was her turn to say his name like a gentle caress. "I will love you and only and the flowers."

Hoffnung bit his lower lip in annoyance. No. She was suppose to love him and only him. No one else. Nothing else. Especially not flowers.

"Dance with me Freya!" He ordered.

"Yes..."

They began a slow pas de doux. Slow, seductive, sensual. That was how Hoffnung began their pas de doux. Steady. There was no reason to rush. He had eaten that morning and if he rushed the heart he could ruin the heart. He had to do things right. Right and carefully. It wouldn't do to have his mother interfering with his feeding because he was careless about his prey.

So observed was he in his prey that he failed to notice the grey cat that had wandered into the garden and was now mesmerized by Freya's swaying hair. The cat pounced on her, digging his claws into the small of her back.

"Ah! Ow!" She exclaimed.

"Stupid cat! Shoo!" He threw the crushed flower at it as it scampered away. But the damage was done. His spell had been broken. He wouldn't get her heart now. Not yet. He needed to see her again. In a different setting, away from the Academy, any cats, and any stupid flowers. "Are you alright, Freya?"

"Yes, I'm fine. I hope the cat is all right."

"Oh, he looked fine as he was running away. Will you see me again? Tonight? At the old bridge over the river through town."

"Uh, sure."

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Fakir sat in the classical German story telling class he'd recently enrolled in. All around him was the sound of quills scribbling furiously over paper as the students wrote furiously to keep up with the teacher's lecture. Fakir was writing furiously as well, but it was not notes he was taking. It was the tale of a Prince whom had become a King, the King whom had had a son and the son who was the Prince of the Ravens.

Fakir ground his teeth unconsciously as page after page of Mytho's life inside the story spilled on to the paper through his hand.

SPACE

The initial shock of seeing Hoffnung's nurse dead on the floor had faded quickly to be replaced by a cold sense of practicality. The body had to disappear. So had the bloody baby blankets in the crib. He watched Rue pluck their son out of the caged baby bed and wipe the blood from his face with the brand new silk dress he'd gotten her. That had to disappear to. No one could know the crown prince, his son, was a Raven!

He walked over to Rue and held her and Hoff-chan in his arms. She was trembling. He whispered that it would be alright. He would take care of everything. She had clutched Hoffnung to her breast and sobbed into his chest. He held them like that for some time until she was calm enough for him to send her to wash the blood from their son's mouth and hands properly. She blinked when he told her to take off the dress before she left, but she complied.

Mytho wrapped the nurse's lifeless body in the dress along with the baby blankets. He forgot what he had tied the bundle closed with but he did remember dragging it out to the stables and throwing it over the back of a horse he'd never used before. He'd ridden out of a servants' gate clad all in dark blue, the same inky blue as the sky. Black would have suited the job better, but he didn't own any black clothing. Not sense he had defeated the Rave.

He had ridden far, not resting, not changing directions, just ridding until the horse got tired. It had stopped by a river to drink, that was when Mytho finally dismounted. He pulled the dead weight off the horse and let it fall to the ground with a **tump**. He rubbed the late nurse's face in the sand of the river bank until there wasn't enough left to be able to identify her. The silk of Rue's dress was strong and very hard to tear, after some time of struggling with the stubborn material, he managed to get three long ribbons of it. He used these to tie the body to a rock and threw her in the river.

The remains of the dress and the bloody baby blankets he left at the opening to a cave in the woods that he assumed was a wolf's den. The wolves, smelling the blood, would come out and tear the fabrics to shreds for him, successfully destroying the remaining evidence that showed his son to be a Raven.

SPACE

"...and that just about covers it for today." The teacher had finished his lecture. "Any questions, comments or concerns, see me after class."

All around Fakir was the sound of chairs scrapping the floor as the waves of students rushed for the door and the freedom beyond. He remained seated and gawked at the pages in-front of him. Had he really just missed an entire class because he was so absorbed in his story?

"Are you alright, Mr.Fakir?" The teacher was standing over him now. He was the only student left in the room. "I've never seen you so studious before." He picked up the last page Fakir had been writing. "Ah, writing a story, I see. Well, that is what this class is here for, though I am a little sad that you weren't paying attention." He read over a few lines. "Seems dark. It almost reminds me of the late Herr Drosslemyer's works." That statement cut Fakir like a knife. "Are you a fan of his?"

"No." Flatly. Defiantly. Almost passionately. No.

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"See, Rue-chan? Cleaning's not that bad." Ahiru gave her friend a ditzy smile as she swung the filthy grey dust rag she was using over her shoulder. "I used to do this loads of times before."

Rue rinsed the mop she'd been given in a bucket of cloudy water. "I don't see how you can stand to do this all the time." She wrong the mop out and began again to scrub a new area of the floor.

"Nah, this is fun!" Another smile. "It gives me time to think. I think about what I have to do as Princess Tutu, about the heart shards, the Raven, the story and Drosslemyer-san. Oh, I also used to wonder why Fakir was such a jerk, but not now. Now I think about what he might be writing. I hope it good." She laughed a goofy little laugh.

Rue smiled. "Ahiru, you'd make a great house wife."

Ahiru blushed. "What really!?" She suddenly went chibi. "You really think so, Rue-chan? I never thought of it before! I don't think so. I'm to klutzy! Besides, who would I marry?"

"How about Fakir?"

She tripped on Rue's wet floor.

"Ahiru! Are you okay?" She knelt down beside her friend.

"I'm okay, Rue-chan. See how klutzy I am? I'd make a terrible wife." Ahiru climbed to her feet.

"But you and Fakir complement each other so well."

Again, she fell. "Heh, heh. You know, Rue-chan, we should really finish this floor. It's really slippery."

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Later that evening the two were returning to their new rooms in the dorms when another girl brushed passed them going the opposite direction.

"Ah, Freya-san!" Ahiru exclaimed joyfully.

Freya didn't reply, she merely kept on walking with a dreamy far off look in her eyes.

"Freya-san?" Repeated a confused Ahiru.

The blond ballerina kept walking, completely oblivious to the pinkish-orange haired girl addressing her. She exited through the massive rot iron gates of the dormitories and turned to walk along the bank of the town's river.

"Ahiru." Rue sounded serious for some reason. "Let's follow her."

"Oh, okay."

The two followed her along the bank to an old stone bridge. A very familiar old bridge. Freya had led them to the old Prodding Bridge the Bridge of Riddles. Of course it was no longer possessed by Mytho's shard of curiosity, but it made them both feel nostalgic all the same.

There was someone standing in the center of the bridge. With a twisted silver crown upon his head,clad in a black tunic with dark feathers running the length of the collar and hem and dark burgundy tights to match. Freya stopped at the edge of the bridge and stared at him.

"Freya..." began the dark figure.

"That's Hoffnung!" Exclaimed Rue. Ahiru gasped.

"...say you love me and only me and hate everyone else." He crossed his hands at the wrist over his stomach then spread his arms to there full span. Enormous black wings appeared where his arms were and crow costumed minions materialized out of the darkness of the night. "Give me your beautiful Pure Heart!"

Ahiru's eyes narrowed in an expression of determinism. Her pendant glowed a brilliant ruby red and she was swiped up in a whirl of shojou sparkles that spiraled around her body to form a golden egg. The egg dissolved into sparkling water droplets and there standing amidst the shinning sparkles was not Ahiru but Princess Tutu!

"Freya-san." Said Tutu. "Don't go over there, Freya-san." She twirled her hands above her head and turned her hand palm upward to Freya. "Won't you come and dance with me, Freya-san?"

"No. I will not!" The hypnotized Freya replied. She turned toward Hoffnung.

"Yes, Freya." He cooed. "Love me. Hate everyone but me."

The crow costumed minions lifted Freya high into the air and brought her to Hoffnung.

"You mustn't, Freya-san." Tutu began to dance. A slow gentle dance reminiscent of a soft breeze through a flowery field. "Remember the flowers, Freya-san. Remember your prayer to them, that they would grow pretty, grow strong. Who will take care of them if you give your heart away?"

Freya opened her eyes ever so slightly. "The... flowers..."

Hoffnung bit his lower lip in annoyance. He flicked his wrist and one of the minions pirouetted over to strike Tutu in the back. The pink Princess when spiraling to the ground. Rue rushed to her side.

"Ahiru, are you alright?" She raised her head to shout at Hoffnung. "Please, Hoff-chan, don't do this!"

Hoffnung ignored her. His minions were now holding Freya directly in-front of him. "Now Freya." He said. "Give me your beautiful Pure Heart!"

"Yes." she closed her eyes.

Hoffnung plunged his hand deep into her chest, fingers ripping through flesh and slipping in between ribs to pull out a shining pink gemstone, the same soft pink as a Queen Elizabeth Rose. He healed the glowing stone aloft in triumph before popping it in his mouth and swallowing the thing whole.

"FREYA-SAN!" Tutu cried.

Freya's limp body was lowered to the ground by the minions whom then vanished in puffs of purple sparkles.

"Hoff-chan, how could you?" Rue had tears in her eyes.

Hoffnung didn't say anything to his distraught mother. He simply averted his eyes and vanished in a swirling mist of wind and black Raven feathers.

Ahiru was sure that if Drosslemyer was still controlling the story she'd be hearing his voice right now saying, "Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear! The Flower Maiden is no more! The Prince has stolen her heart! What will you do, Princess Tutu? What will you do?"

**Fin **for now...


	8. Vignette 8

Disclaimer: Don't own Tutu. Nope. Not a bit of it.

Vignette Eight:

Rue and Princess Tutu laid a seemingly lifeless Freya down on her bed in the girls dormitory of Kinkon Academy of Visual and Performing Arts. Rue pressed her middle and indx fingers to the blond ballerina's wrist with no result. She did the same to the artery in her neck, it was the same. No pulse. No heart.

"I'm sorry, Ahiru." She said to her companion.

The pink princess' eyes welled up. "That can't be." She grabbed Freya's shoulders and shook her body violently. "Freya-san! FREYA-SAN! Pull yourself together, Freya-san." But it was no use. Freya's body remained limp and lifeless.

Rue placed a comforting hand on Princess Tutu's bare shoulder. "I'm sorry, Ahiru." She said. "This is all my fault. I knew Hoffnung was going to to something like this. I just thought... I guess I thought I could stop him."

Ahiru reverted back from Princess Tutu. "No, Rue-chan. I couldn't save her. I don't understand what happened. Back when Mytho did this all I had to do was appear on the scene as Princess Tutu and he would spaz-out and I could save his victim. But my appearance had no effect on Hoffnung. What went wrong?"

Rue remained silent.

"FREYA-SAN!" The comatose blondie had stirred on the bed before them. Ahiru bent close to her face still shouting at her. "Freya-san! You're alive! You're alright! Freya-san!"

She had the most blank and empty look in her eyes as she sat up in bed.

"How do you feel?" Asked a very shocked Rue.

"I don't know." Replied the blonde ballerina in a monotone.

"Are you alright, Freya-san?" Asked the genuinely concerned Ahiru.

"Maybe." Freya's face was a blank mask. She had no expression as she spoke and there was no infraction in her voice. She was alive, but without her heart the blond ballerina was the same an animated doll.

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Mytho struggled uselessly against the silvery-white threads that bound him, all he achieved, however, was just to cut them deeper into his flesh and drain yet more blood from his already taped body. He heard footsteps on the cog wheel below him and glanced down to see Hoffnung staring up at him. He looked happy about something, happy and full.

"You've eaten." Said Mytho.

Hoffnung ignored his father's statement. "You shouldn't struggle like that, father. It drains the blood from your heart."

"Why don't you let me down then?"

This to, he ignored. "I met the most interesting person today. Would you like to hear about it?"

Mytho was silent.

"Her name might sound familiar to you: Princess Tutu?"

Mytho's eyes widened and an expression of absolute relief spread over his entire face. "Princess Tutu!" He closed his eyes. "Yes. Rue found her. I'm so glad." He looked Hoffnung square in the face. "Princess Tutu can... no... Princess Tutu WILL save you."

The Raven boy laughed. "Save me? From what? Myself? You? No, Father, I'm afraid that it's you who needs the saving right now. Not me."

"Princess Tutu will know what to do. She will save you, just like she saved me."

A third time Hoffnung ignored his father's words. "Look what I've done with the place!" He wave a hand indicating all the brass cogwheels all turning and clicking together like... well, like clock work. "I got the thing started again. Well, my writer got the thing started again wile you were unconscious. Isn't it beautiful?"

"If by beautiful you mean creepy, then yes."

"You never appreciate the things that I do!"

"You never do anything worth appreciating."

That statement cut. Hoffnung liked to think that his heart had hardened against his fathers disappointment, his father's shame at having a Raven for a son but no, it hadn't and Mytho's words were like poring salt on an already festering wound.

"Princess Tutu won't help you, father!" There was more anger than determination in his eyes. "I won't let her. I will take everything from her, everything she loves! I will give her nothing! I will let her do nothing. A useless Princess from an already ended story."

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Rue sat alone in her dorm room. The same room she had occupied during her first stay at the Academy, as Princess Kreahe. She starred out her window at the moon lit courtyard below. Not much actually happened in that courtyard she realized. In-fact, during the whole of the Tutu anime maybe only two or three events actually took place there. The courtyard held no memories for her and so it was good place, a neutral place to stair wile her thoughts ran wild in her head.

Hoffnung had stolen another heart. She knew he would, of course he would it was all he could eat to sustain himself. Just the Pure Hearts of innocent people. Rue had tried other thing, things that he could feed on without stealing hearts. The original Raven had raised her on his own blood and so that was her first attempt. After that fateful night when she and Mytho had learned that Hoffnung was a Raven she had begun feeding him her own blood.

She had to be stealthy about it, she knew that if Mytho ever found out he would be furious. She tried to pass off the cuts on her hands and wrists an simple carelessness, Mytho never pressed her to hard he would just get this sad look in his eyes and say that as long as she was alright he wouldn't worry. And this continued for years. Rue was sure that in that time Mytho must have figured it out eventually, but he never said anything.

The only time it seemed like he was going to call her on it was one evening when she had walked in on him trying to get Hoff-chan to eat some mashed up... something. He had simply turned his head to face her and said "He must love you more than me. I can never get him to eat, but he always eats for you." He had stood up then and turned to leave the room as he passed he had whispered to her "You will have to tell me your secret some day." And then he left.

As it happened, Rue never did tell him how she got Hoffnung to eat, or what she was feeding him. He grew up as healthy as he could, altho he was always an inch from starvation but they were happy. That is until Hoffnung got hungry during one of his lessons one day, he was around the age of seven, and ended up eating his tutor's heart.

Mytho hadn't know what to do then. He'd never been faced with something like this before. Now everyone, or at least everyone who lived in the palace, knew that the crown prince was a Raven. Not knowing what else to do, Mytho did what most parents in fairy tales do: he locked Hoffnung up in the highest room of the tallest tower in the whole of the palace. But there was one thing that Mytho had forgotten, and that was that Raven's could fly, and so Hoffnung had escaped.

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Fakir ignored the insistent knock at the door. It was late, no one should be calling this late. Whoever it was could just come back tomorrow. He was writing and he did not want to be disturbed. The knocker persisted. Fakir gritted his teeth, if this kept up they would wake Karon. He stood and walked to the door, yanking it open with all the ferociousness of a fan fiction writer whom had received to many critical reviews.

"FAKIR!" The pink-orange haired girl stumbled into the room, the skirt of her school uniform swirling around her hips. "Fakir, it's terrible! Freya-san! Freya-san...!"

"Ahiru." He seized the panicked princess about the shoulders. "Calm down. What about Freya?"

"He stole her heart." Tears spilled from her eyes.

It took him a moment to remember just who "he" was. "But she's still alive? Mytho had no heart and he wasn't dead, remember? So we'll get it back for her just like we did for Mytho." He smiled a gentle smile and patted the distraught Ahiru on the head.

"Really, we can?" She immediately brightened. "Even though he ate it!"

Fakir paused. He was thinking it was just sitting on a shelf somewhere and when they rescued Mytho they could just grab it during their get away. But if he had eaten it... Fakir didn't really want to think about rescuing a heart from some one's small intestine or even just their stomach for that matter.

"Don't worry." He finally said. "I'll write a way for us to get her heart back. Like maybe after we defeat Hoffnung, all the hearts he's eaten will just magically return to their proper places."

He hugged him then. "That's great!"

He moved automatically to wrap his arms around her in turn but paused. She still hadn't given him her answer to his question. Did she still love Mytho? Would she shy away from any advances on his part? If he hugged her back would she push him away? Would she hold tighter? Would she do nothing and think it nothing more than just a friendly hug? Most likely the latter of the three. She was very dense.

"Oh, yeah." She pulled out of her one sided hug. "Have you written anything new since turning me back into Tutu?"

He grinned the grin of an artist that was just beginning to be recognized in their field. He swept up the stack of paper that was Mytho's life story in one dramatic "swoosh" and held them out for Ahiru to take. She accepted the hand written novella began to read. He watched as her expression changed from happy to optimistic, to apprehensive, to sad and finally she placed the pages down on the table.

"This is really sad, Fakir."

"But this is what happened in the story before Rue came back out." He spread the pages out over the table so that each one could be seen. "It tells us why every thing's happening the way it is."

"Did it tell you how we can help Rue-chan and Mytho?"

"No. Not yet." He had a weird look on his face. Ahiru didn't quite know how to interpret it.

"We don't need to read about the sad things that happened before we got involved. We just need to know how we can help now." She placed a hand over Fakir's and slowly lifted it away from the pages. "So don't write any more sad thing." She held his hand in both of hers now. "Just like we did before, let's combine our 'we want to save Mytho' powers." A smile.

"Right." He said absent mind-idly as he gathered the pages to gather and placed them in the correct order. Combine their powers... Oh, he wanted to "combine" with her alright. The initial physical attraction he'd felt toward her when she first retuned to human for had subsided since the town had been absorbed further into the new story. He assumed it was because fairy tale characters weren't driven by... by the need to procreate like real people. Thank you Dr. Freud. But the attraction was still there and still strong.

"Hey, Fakir?" She was fiddling with the hem of her skirt. "Remember when you asked if I still loved Mytho or not?"

"Yeah..."

"Well, Rue-chan said something to me a wile ago." The hem of her uniform seemed increasingly interesting to her as she spoke. "We were at the Prodding Bridge, you know the one that was possessed by the feeling of curiosity."

He gave a blank stair. He wasn't in that part of the episode. She didn't notice his lack of recognition though, her skirt was to fascinating.

"I asked her if it would be better if Mytho had a heart and she said it didn't matter. She said that she loved him just the way he was and that he didn't need to change, but if he did change she would continue to love him. She said she couldn't love him enough."

"Is you answer to my question then the same as hers?"

"No." Now she was fiddling with the pendant. "It's just that she loved Mytho unconditionally. And I... I loved Mytho because he was handsome. When he was getting his heart back piece by piece I think I still loved him, even when he was evil I think I loved him. But after he went back into the story I started thinking. Maybe it wasn't really Mytho I loved but... but maybe I was in love with the idea of Mytho instead. Does that make sense?"

It made perfect sense and was music to his ears.

"So, I can't answer your question, Fakir, because I don't know the answer myself." She stopped distracting herself with clothing and accessories and met his eyes. "Is it important for the story? Originally Princess Tutu wanted to save the Prince 'cause she loved him. But I don't know anymore, does that mean that I can't be Princess Tutu? Is that why I couldn't save Freya-san?" He eyes welled up. "Fakir!"

This time he did wrap his arms around her, a firm, tight hug. He felt the warmth of her tears as she cried into his shirt and searched wildly for something to say. He didn't have much experience with girls, and by "much" he of course meant "none", and he had even less experience with crying girls so words escaped him. The best he could do, he decided, was what he was already doing and so he just held her and waited for her to finish.

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Autor watched the quill move across the paper. The quill suspended from the story machine, the quill being moved by the wheels, not his quill. The story wasn't his any more. But then, he realized, it probably never was from the beginning. He was just being used by Hoffnung, a puppet that could influence the story, what a useful pawn he had made. And he'd never even gotten the chance to talk to Rue, let alone make her his.

He peered up into the mass of cogs and gears above. Somewhere up there Hoffnung was taunting Mytho pointlessly. He looked back at the quill, now he was a pawn and a servant. He had made Mytho suffer inside the story, brought Hoffnung out, even fixed Drosslemyer's machine and this was his reward.

"I chose the path of the villain." Autor sneered at himself. "And everyone knows that villains never get a 'happily ever after'. We get our just desserts."

"Did you say 'desert'?" There was a flutter of black feathers as Hoffnung landed gently next to Autor. "I really couldn't possibly. I'm still full from the blond. But if you're hungry, I here this restaurant called Ebine is really good."

Autor didn't respond. He venously wished that Hoffnung would just disappear.

**Fin **for now...

Thanx To...

James Birdsong: Your reviews are always so positive, I really appreciate that.

Puchiko2: thank you for your in put, I'm trying to write my fiction wile still honoring and staying true to the Anime, I am often annoyed by fan fictions that abandon the fundamental characteristics of the original work from which it was based. As far as ch. 7 mimicking season 2 of the Anime... I was just really annoyed that Tutu always managed to save every one of Mytho's victims in the Anime. I really wanted some one to louse their heart, if for no other reason than to show that Princess Tutu wasn't infallible. That and I really hated Freya, she reminded me to much of Aris/ Arith from FFVII.

Lady Ariez: I'm glad you like it so much. : )

Special Thanx To...

Lady Ariez for adding me to her favorite authors, favorite stories and her Story Alerts.


	9. Feder und Rabe

Disclaimer: In the ashes sits a maid, in a house both stern and staid. Oh! Wait! This is a different story. Ah, well. I don't own either.

Vignette Nine: Feder und Rabe

_Tell me a story._

The command bounced around his head. It had started early that morning and continued on throughout breakfast with Karon. Impatient and incessant.

_Tell me a story._

It had slowed on his walk to school. Only repeating every few steps.

_Tell me a story._

In his classes it had risen to an angry roar. Repeating endlessly at a volume he didn't know his head could contain.

_Tell me a story._

He wanted to write so badly.

_Tell me a story._

Ahiru had asked him not to write anything sad.

_Tell me a story._

He wanted to know what had happened to Mytho. In the years spent in the story. So much time had been lost it seemed. Only six months to Fakir but Mytho... it had been sixteen years for Mytho. And even if it was sad, even if he felt remorse over the best friend he hadn't done better by, he still wanted to know. More than just that: he wanted to know what happened next.

_Tell me a story._

The command wasn't meant for him. He was in-fact the one giving the command. A command to Mytho, a command to Rue and yes, a command to Ahiru.

Now, Princess Tutu, _Tell me a story!_

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The door to the remedial ballet class burst open.

"I'm sorry I'm late!" The pink-orange haired girl bowed low.

"Oh, my dear, you are flushed." A fellow student in the remedial class offered her not a hand but a rose. "For the cruel school to force such a young and beautiful maiden to exert such effort to attend! It's more than I could bear! It is a crime! And I, as one who is qualified to be a true Prince will not stand for it!"

(A/N: That's right readers! It's Femio. Don't kill me...)

The teacher clapped her paws. "That will be quite enough, Mr. Femio."

Ahiru gazed across the room to see that the teacher was a slender cat with sleek white fur and long elegant whiskers. She turned towards Ahiru.

"You are Mis. Ahiru, are you not." Ahiru nodded. "See to it that you are not late for class again or else** I shall have my ex-husband marry you**!"

Ahiru immediately straitened. "Y-yes, ma'am!"

"You may take your place at the bar." She licked her paws then rubbed her face. "Start in first position, then move to second position keeping your back strait..."

This all seemed very familiar...

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Autor never thought that when his piano teacher (Penguin-sensei) asked him to fill in on one of the ballet lessons that it would be the only one that mattered to him. The lesson for the advanced class. The class that contained Rue. This was it. This was his chance. He may not be moving the story any more, he may be just a pawn in Hoffnung's evil scheme, but he was also still in love with Rue. He didn't care that she was older now, having an older girlfriend could be cool. He didn't care that she'd had a child, she was still as beautiful as that day she'd fallen across his path, that day she'd pressed her head to his chest and told him she could hear his heart. That day he'd professed his undying love for her!

She had said that it wasn't true. That he didn't really love her, that he couldn't. But he was sure, now more than ever, that he loved Rue more than anything. But she was out of his reach, out of his league, unattainable. And that realization just made his heart break as he watched her dance. She was so beautiful, so elegant. The moderato he was playing didn't do her justice. So he changed it.An andante piece to match the soft elegance of her countenance: Gymnopedie No. 3 by Eric Satie.

Rue faltered in her steps when the music changed suddenly. This song... she knew this song very well, it had played in the background of her mind so many time back when... when she was Princess Kraehe. She peered over her shoulder at the pianist. Light streaming in through the window was reflected off his glasses making it impossible to see his eyes, but the face did look familiar somehow. She just couldn't place where she'd seen him before.

"Mr.Autor!" Cat-sensei interrupted the hypnotic melody. "You were supposed to be playing No. 14 Scene: Moderato! Is there a problem here? Did you bring the wrong sheet music?"

Autor straitened in his seat on the piano bench. "No, sir. I simply was trying to match the music to the ballerina's uneic elegance and grace." He was still speaking to the teacher but he looked at her when he said "elegance and grace". That was when the angle of light changed and she saw his eyes, so tender and affectionate. Was he one of her stalkers then? Like that Malen girl from the drawing devision. No. No stalker would associate that song with her, he had to have seen her a Kraehe. But the only person she had approached as Kraehe was that ridiculous oaf of a false Prince Femio. So who then...?

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Fakir sat on the steps of the gazebo behind the school. His writing tablet was resting comfortably over his left arm and the quill pen was held by his right had equally as comfortably resting on the black page. Fakir himself, however, was not comfortable. His hand would move as if to write but then tremble and return to it's resting position.

_Tell me a story._

"Hear the voice that is voiceless, she the shape that is shapeless." He chanted softly.

He wanted to write. So very badly did he want to write. Ahiru had asked him not to write anymore sad things. But happiness and sadness was in the eye of the reader. It was variable, relative.

"Hear the voice that is voiceless, she the shape that is shapeless."

Mytho's shard of hope was what made Ahiru human.

"Don't write anymore sad things, Fakir." Those were her words.

Mytho and Rue had had their chance at a happy ending and had blown it. Ahiru had be cursed to be a duck forever and she had accepted that fate smilingly. No one deserved a happy ending more than she did and it had been denied her. If... Mytho didn't get the shard back...

"Don't write anymore sad things, Fakir."

If Mytho didn't take back the shard of hope then she... then she could live as a human girl.

"Don't write anymore sad things, Fakir."

_Tell me a story._

"Hear the voice that is voiceless, she the shape that is shapeless."

It was maddening! All the word! The voices, HIS voice! All swirling around in his head he didn't know what he wanted from the story or what the story wanted from him.

"Fakir?" He looked up at the sound of his name to see big innocent eyes of Ahiru full of concern and looking at him. "Are you okay, Fakir? Do you have a headache? You were pulling at your hair."

"I'm fine." He lied. "It's just that writing is still pretty hard." A hollow smile.

She smiled back, a warm comforting smile full of light and joy that made his heart due a grand jete deep in his chest. "Can I read what you've got?" Without waiting to hear his reply she slid the writing tablet off of his lap and on to hers. She frowned when she saw the page.

"I haven't actually written anything since last night." He confessed.

"Oh." Her frown deepened. "So this is a journal then?"

"Huh?" He took the page back from her. Written haphazardly over the page in his own had writing was the sentence: "The words swirled and swam around the young authors head as he pondered his own conflict of duty, friendship and love."

"What the heck is this B.S.?" He gawked at the last word "love". Ahiru had read that. Did she understand it's meaning or was she to dense to understand even that obvious a statement? And when exactly did he right this, anyway? His thoughts were interrupted, however, by the announcement of another cast member's entrance.

"Princess Tutu." Hoffnung's voice was strong and commanding. "I'll take that shard of my father's heart now."

Ahiru placed a hand protectively over the ruby gem. "Hoff-chan." She began. "You don't really want to do this. Rue-chan and Mytho both love you very much so-"

"Shut-up!" An expression of unfocused anger contorted his beautiful face. "Don't talk about things you couldn't possibly understand! I want that shard of my father's heart and I will take it. By force if necessary!" At that last statement his blue and white school uniform melted away to be replaced by the black feathered tights and tunic of a Raven.

"Fakir." Ahiru said without looking at him, her voice full of serious determination. "Please write now."

The stone around her neck glowed it's vibrant red as she was enveloped in the familiar pink and silver and gold shojou sparkles. And when the golden egg that had solidified around her dissolved Ahiru was no longer standing there. Instead there was Princess Tutu.

She twirled her hands above her head then extended her palm to Hoffnung. "Please, Hoff-chan, wont you come and dance with me?"

"No, Princess Tutu." He grabbed her up-turned hand by the wrist. "YOU will come and dance with ME." He pulled her in close to himself so that her ear was almost pressed against his chest. "Dance with me, Princess Tutu. Love me, Princess Tutu."

"AHIRU!" Fakir shouted across the tree inclosed lawn. He bit the inside of his cheek as he desperately fought the urge to rush out and pull her away from danger. She had asked him to write, so he would write.

Fakir sat back down, he hadn't been aware of even standing up, and pulled the writing tablet back over his lap. "Hear the voice that is voiceless, see the shape that is shapeless." His mantra. "Ahiru..."

SPACE

Princess Tutu danced slowly and elegantly to the pace set by her Raven partner.

"Why do you fight so hard for the heart, Princess Tutu?" He whispered in her ear. "What is it that drives you? Duty? Friendship? Love? They're all frivolous things in the end."

"I act only according to the Prince's will." She replied mechanically. It was a question she had been struggling with since regaining her human for and didn't yet know the answer to. Did she still love Mytho? Or were her feelings for him false all along? Did she dawn the guise of Princess Tutu for his sake, Rue's sake, Fakir's or her own? Questions she asked herself in the late hours of the night or early hours of the morning. Questions she could never answer for herself.

"'The Prince's will', you say." He scoffed. "Well, the Prince who's will you so eagerly acted on before is now a King, I am the Prince of the story now, Princess Tutu." He pulled her face close to his and gazed into her big blue eyes. "How about acting according to my will." He leaned down to ki---

SPACE

Fakir scratched that last sentence out before even finishing it. Absolutely NOT! Under no circumstances was ANYONE going to kiss Ahiru but HIM!

SPACE

He leaned down as if to kiss her but at the crucial moment the klutz that was Ahiru surfaced in Tutu's dancing and her pink toe shoe clad foot tangled itself in Hoffnung's feet, sending the Raven Prince spiraling downward to contact the ground with a resounding TUMP.

The ebony feather clad divo glared across the lawn at the knight whom had cast away his sword in favor of the pen with such anger and resentment in his eyes that Princess Tutu feared the pages might ignite in their writer's hands.

SPACE

Fakir paused again in his writing to meet Hoffnung's icy gaze. He glared back, fully accepting the unspoken challenge. No one would have Ahiru in any of her incarnations but him. Especially not an evil narcissist who's only real interest in her was the jewel around her neck.

Hoffnung stood and smirked maliciously.

"Trying to save face." Fakir thought.

"I shall with draw for now." And with a swirl of dark wind he was gone, leaving only a single black feather in the place where he had stood.

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Autor had waited outside the girls' locker room for almost an hour and just as he was ready to give up she emerged. The beautiful Miss Rue with her long, curly black hair and immaculate school uniform. She was the very picture of perfection as far as he was concerned.

His courage failed him when he tried to approach her. But he HAD to speak to her, if for no other reason than to apologize.

"Rue-san." He began.

"Yes?" She blinked at him. "You're the pianist from class."

He blushed. He'd never noticed before just how much "pianist" sounded like... well you can figure it out. "Y-yes." He confirmed her statement. "I wanted to apologize to you though."

"That's alright. I agree that sometimes the music in class is a little lacking in the entertainment category. But the purpose is for us to learn our respective crafts and with any form of study there will be boring parts."

"Yeah." He agreed. "No wait. That not what I... what I mean is... um... I don't know how to say this..."

She smiled a sympathetic smile.

He forgot his sins in that smile. "Can I walk you back to your dorm?" He asked.

Now her smile was humorous. "I warn you: I'm taken."

"I know." He said without thinking.

She smiled a third time and passed him her books held together by a leather strap. "You know about the 'five feet' rule, right?"

He gawked.

**Fin **for now...

Thanx to:

Crimson Rogue: You saw more depth in my OC than I even thought of. I appreciate the complements, but I don't deserve them. And I would hardly call my story "Imchanting" But I'm glad you like it all the same.

Fish Head The 3rd and Co.: I'm more than happy to give you more ideas for Autor's character, I myself was actually disappointed by the lack of Autor jealousy towards Mytho fan fictions.

James Birdsong: "fascinating"? between you and Crimson Rogue, I'm going to get a swelled head over this.

Special Thanx to:

Fish Head The 3rd and Co. for adding me to their favorite stories, and favorite authors


	10. The Child Part 1

Disclaimer: Don't own it, but lets get on with it...

Vignette Ten: The Child (part one)

The very happy Autor flopped down on a very soft bed with a very pleased smile on his face. He fixed his gaze on the pink hue of the setting sun just outside his dorm room window and re-played the afternoon's events in his head.

Rue handed him her books and had explained that the "Five Feet" rule stated that a boy must maintain a distance of five feet or more away from any girls he might by chance meet. It was an out dated rule that was only mentioned as a joke nowadays but she wanted him to follow it as a favor to her, so he did. He seemed not to notice the physical distance between them, however. Any time spent talking with Rue was time spent well.

She had asked what made him choose music and he had replied "math". She had looked confused. He explained that music had intriguing mathematical properties on various quantum levels. Her confusion seemed to deepen. He changed the subject by asking her what made her choose ballet. She had looked sad for a moment before saying that her father had told her it was the only thing she was good for.

Silence.

He told her that music and dance had a symbiotic relationship similar to that of math and science. He knew he was babbling, but it was all he could do to keep from falling to his knees and bearing his soul to her right there in the middle of the crowded street.

They reached the dormitories.

He violated the Five Feet rule just enough to give her her books back. She thanked him when he handed them to her. He apologized for babbling. She smiled and said it was enlightening. He blushed. She slipped inside and shut the door.

Autor rolled over on the bed, burying his still smiling face in the pillow. "Enlightening" she had said, he rather liked the sound of that. He may just be the pawn in an evil plot by a troubled Raven teenager, but for one fleeting moment someone had thought he was interesting, important, enlightening.

His happy thoughts were interrupted by the entrance of his "Master" thought the window.

"Damn, that writer!" The ebony feathered Prince swore as he massaged what appeared to be a twisted ankle. "I almost had her, almost had the shard!"

Autor rushed over before Hoffnung had to call him. "What happened?" He forced as much concern into his voice as he could muster. With out being ordered he pored cold water out of a flower vase (the flower had long since died) and onto a handkerchief which he wrapped around the Raven boy's swelling ankle.

"Thanks." A micro-expression of surprise, it was gone before Autor could notice. "That black pony tailed, useless excuse for a knight, writer: Fakir. That's what."

Autor said nothing.

"I need to find a way to get rid of him. He could destroy everything I've worked so hard to for!"

Again Autor remained silent.

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"For the last time, Fakir, I WASN'T!" Ahiru glared at her black pony tailed companion.

"Don't try to lie to yourself. I was writing the whole thing." He matched her glare for glare. "You were about two seconds away from kissing him, maybe even getting your heart stolen along with the shard. If I hadn't stopped him..." He shrugged. "Who knows what would have happened?"

"I had the situation under control." She broke eye contact. "If I could understand why Hoff-chan was doing this, then maybe we could save him and Mytho at the same time..."

"Ha! Right there!" He said triumphantly. "You've already fallen for him! Girls are always falling all over bad boys, boys they think they can change but ultimately never will. It's pathetic."

"**Well, I guess that rule doesn't apply to me after all, 'cause I never fell for YOU!**" The pure undiluted emotion in her voice cut deeper than the words themselves. "I thought what we went through before HAD changed you. But I was wrong, **you're still the same old JERK!**"

She turned to storm off in a huff but stopped short. "Erm... when did we pass the dorms?"

He didn't meet her eyes. "Half and hour ago. We're almost at my house now."

She looked down the street to see that her was right. There, the last house at the end of the block, by the wall, was the Schmied. "You must think I'm really stupid, don't you?"

"No." His eyes were still sad but gentle now to. "I think you're Ahiru."

She made an anime face. "Grr. Coming from you, that sounds exactly the same!"

He chuckled. "I didn't know ducks could growl."

He reply was cut off before it even began by the entrance of a supporting cast member. "Ah, Fakir... and Ahiru too." Karon smiled at them both. "I was coming out to look for you, Fakir. Retzel and Hanz have come to pay us a visit and guess what..." his expression turned devilishly mischievous. "Retzel has a surprise."

Fakir blinked. "Retzel." (from ep. 20, "The Forgotten Story" the subs spelled her name "Rachael" but the pronunciation was "Retzel")

"Ah, Retzel-san!" Ahiru clasped Karon's hands in her own. "Can I come too? It's been so long since I've seen Retzel-san." A smile.

He smiled back. "Of course."

The two followed him in through the Schmied's back door. Retzel was seated at the oak wood table across from a man with short brown hair and a gentle looking face. She stood when Fakir entered the room and gave an incredibly high pitched (and girly) squeal upon seeing Retzel's round belly.

Fakir's first thought was "She got fat?" But then the logical part of his brain observed that all the "fat" was concentrated in the front of her abdomen. A vivid red blush spread over the entirety of his face upon realizing the full meaning of her very full belly.

She rubbed he belly affectionately. "Six months." She smiled wickedly. "You know what that means?... It's a honey moon baby!" She glanced affectionately over at Hanz whom was still seated at the table.

The blush spread from Fakir's face to his ears and neck and if at all possible became even brighter and redder. "Th-that's great."

"Retzel, dear, the poor boy looks like steams about to start whistling from his ears." The man at the table, Hanz, said sympathetically.

"That's wonderful, Retzel-san!" Ahiru was ecstatic. "You must be so proud, Hanz-san."

"Y-yeah." He smiled.

"And they want me to be Godfather." Karon swelled with pride.

"That's wonderful, Karon-san!" Ahiru seemed to not be able to stop beaming.

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Sun light spread like butter over the town of Kinkon... Goldcrown... whichever you prefer.

Rue's stomach growled in protest of her decision to skip breakfast in favor of seeking out the music student from yesterday -Autor. She knew who he was now. It had become painfully obvious yesterday when he had spent the entire time walking with her talking of nothing but complicated principles and philosophy and his own intellectual superiority. He was the know it all from episode 22 (I forgot the title but the theme was "The Great Gate at Kiev"). The boy that had helped her up when she had fallen and as payment she had decided to steal his heart but at the last moment she had hesitated. Hesitated because he claimed to love her.

He had said nothing of the sort yesterday, of course. That lead her to believe that he was either delusional or lying. But that wasn't why she was looking for him today. The last time they had talked, or rather, the last time HE had talked, it was a lecture on how the town was controlled by stories. If he could be persuaded to help them, then he would be a useful informant and ally in Fakir's writing. Heck! He might even know who it was that brought Hoffnung out of the story and started the tragedies all over again. If that were the case then he'd be in-disposable!

She entered the piano room. He wasn't there. The room was completely empty save a single grand piano with it's lid propped up exposing the taught strings. Rue had no gift for the piano, or any instrument for that matter, but she walked around to the keys all the same. She lifted the lid and scrutinized the yellowing ivory keys for a moment before playing four notes. The last she let hand in the air before repeating the sequence and then closed the lid. She didn't know the rest of the piece. She turned to leave.

"Beethoven's fifth." Autor was standing in the door way leaning slightly against the frame. "A personal favorite of mine. Would you like to here the whole piece?"

"No thank you." Rue was thrown off guard by his sudden appearance. "I actually wanted to ask you something. Something I don't want others to hear about."

He lifted an eyebrow but said nothing as he fully entered the room closing the door behind him.

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Down the hall hiding just behind the corner, Hoffnung smiled at the sound of the piano room door shutting. So far it was working. It was somewhere between late last night and early this morning when he'd gotten the idea. His ankle still throbbing from his encounter with Princess Tutu and her Writer Fakir and still seething with unvented anger he was un-able to sleep. He had left the dormitories and flown to the clock tower in the center of town to check on the story machine and the story it self. To read what was happening where his peripheral vision couldn't see.

It was then that Hoffnung had the idea. After reading what his mother's plans for Autor had been he'd made some of his own. Autor could act as a double agent and saboteur to Fakir's writing. It would be easy seeing as how he had been the one to train Fakir in the first place and Princess Tutu seemed to trust everyone unconditionally. The problem would have been Rue, but Rue was now the one seeking Autor out. Oh, it was beautiful! Autor could distort and corrupt Fakir's writing and weaken Princess Tutu's heart and all he, Hoffnung, would have to do is swoop in and claim his victory!

Autor had refused the plan of course. It had taken some time and his own Raven's Brand of persuasion to convince the boy but after he'd seen the brilliance of the plan (and realized that he rather liked having all ten fingers still attached) he had zealously agreed. The story was moving brilliantly now and all Hoffnung had to due was sit back and watch.

His stomach growled.

Okay. Sit back and watch with a bucket of popped hearts and large blood soda. But still just watch.

He moved off to class, the wicked smile still on his face. The advanced class was giving a small performance to the beginner and remedial classes and he didn't want to be late. Especially not when one of those classes contained Princess Tutu and with her the ever so important Shard of Hope.

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_Tell me a story._

Fakir ignored the voice as he sat in lecture and day dreamed. What would Ahiru look like if she... if she were... if he and she... Okay, well he couldn't exactly bring himself to think the exact question but he still speculated the answer.

What would Ahiru look like if she were pregnant? With his child of course.

Retzel was ALL baby in front. Her round abdomen already massive after only six moths stuck far out away from her body. Her body that still seemed to be the same thin but lean anime body that she'd had in episode twenty. She was still a vision o beauty so long as you kept your eyes focused on her face (or if you were male, her breast) and avoided her belly.

Fakir smiled to himself. Knowing his luck if he ever got Ahiru pregnant she would be the type that got fat all over. He cringed at the mental image that brought. A severally inflated Ahiru with swollen cheeks, arms, wrists, fingers, legs, ankles and toes that would stomp around complaining of back pains. And whenever she would stomp the ground would shake.

He tried to calm his agitated nerves by reminding himself that he and Ahiru were, in fact, NOT married and not due to be so any time soon. (Much to this author's lament...) This relieved the creepafyed(this is not a real word so don't correct my spelling) feeling produced by his mental imaging, however, it also made him desperately depressed.

_Tell me a story._

Shut-up.

Ahiru wasn't his. She was in-fact no one's but herself's. That was fine. He like her because she was herself. But he wanted her to he his in the since that she loved him. Not as a friend, not the way he was sure she loved him now. But in the way she loved Mytho before. He wanted her to love him as a man not as a male friend. But she didn't. And as dense as she was she probably wouldn't unless he did something drastic and dramatic to make her see differently.

_Tell me a story._

The voice was getting annoying. He needed to write. Yes, he would write. He knew just what the Write thing to do was. The thing to make Ahiru love him just like she had loved Mytho. He smiled evilly to himself. Mytho and Rue had had their chance at a "happily ever after" and had blown it.

"Please Fakir, don't write any more sad things."

He ignored the memory of her words. Mytho had had her and had slighted her feelings in favor of Rue. Rue and Mytho had had their happy ending, now it was their turn.

Now, Princess Tutu, _Tell me a story!_

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Ahiru smiled her goofy-cute smile as the student in the advanced ballet class entered the room. Hoffnung looked stunning in his lose white t-shirt tucked into tight black tights and white toe shoes. He looked just like Mytho, all accept for his Raven black hair. His hair reminded Ahiru more of Rue's. Speaking of, where was Rue? She was a member of the advanced class to. There was Hoffnung, Rue and the other three un-important characters that the anime never gave names to. (A/N I know in the anime there were 4 extras, but the special class is also caped at 5 so if Hoff is there then one of the extras need to go.) But Rue seemed to be strangely absent today.

Ahiru's pondering was short lived, however, as the missing Rue burst through the doors and nearly crashed into her wicked son's back. He steadied her with a hand, an expression slightly less villanish and slightly more considerate on his face.

"Sorry I'm late." She addressed the Cat teacher, completely oblivious to Hoffnung's momentary laps of caring. "I was detained for reasons of my own." A friendly smile.

The Cat teacher flicked one of her ears. "See that it does not happen again, Miss Rue. Or else I shall be forced to **have my ex-husband marry you!**"

Rue made an Ahiru style bow. "It won't happen again."

Madam Cat sat on the floor to scratch her ear with her hind claw. "You may begin." **scratch scratch scratch**

Ahiru gazed wide eyed as Rue began the pas de deux de lago dos cisnes, th epas de deux of the black swan from none other than the trademark ballet of the Tutu anime: Swan Lake. Rue made an excellent Odiel. Well, she ALWAYS did make an excellent Odiel. But Hoffnung's Siegfried seemed... Ahiru didn't know what adjective to use. Courser? Darker? um... finally she settled on "longing" but that was a far stretch from the other adjectives that surfaced in her mind. One thing was for sure, though, Hoffnung was just as skilled and beautiful a dancer as Mytho.

"They sure are great."

"Oh, that point must hurt her toes so much! I wish she'd come to me for comfort."

Ahiru looked to her left to see none other than Pike and Lillie whispering to each other in not to wisperish voices.

"That new guy, Hoffnung, sure is cute, huh?" Pike had a mild blush of her face. "But he's still not as great as the dark and gloomy Fakir!" She seemed resolute.

"I wanna see him cry." Lillie had the sweetest smile on her face, one whom didn't know her would think that they had misheard the words she'd spoken.

Ahiru smile to herself. They hadn't changed much. She went back to watching the pas de deux. Rue was always so elegant. She wished she could be as fine a dancer, as beautiful a woman as Rue. "I wonder when I'll FINALLY be able to dance like that..." she said aloud.

Pike and Lillie's heads snapped in her direction.

"Such a huge dream!" Pike exclaimed.

"And from someone in the remedial class no less." Lillie covered her smile with a hand.

The two pounced on her.

"That's it, Girl, reach for the sky! Reach for your dreams!"

"The higher you climb the harder you'll fall! It's SO CUTE!"

Madam Cat turned her full focused attention on the three girls. "You three!" a blue aura hung around her. "For disturbing the performance the advanced students have so tirelessly practiced for you you shall all three be cleaning this room after school! And if this happens again, **I shall have my ex-husband marry you!**"

Ahiru hung her head in exasperation. This was just TOO much like the anime.

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Hoffnung leisurely strolled the city streets after class. It had been entertaining seeing Princess Tutu squirm under Madam Cat's eyer but class was over, Autor was busily doing fake research with his mother and he was getting a little hungry. So he decided to take a light walk and maybe a not so light hunt. The city was full of ripe hearts just ready for the taking and that meat he could afford to be picky with his food.

A tall man walking with his wife bumped into him.

"Oh, I'm sorry, son." He smiled at Hoffnung in the infuriating way that adults smiled at strangers' children. He had to fight very, VERY heard to suppress the urge to rip the man's smiling lips clean off his face.

"That's alright." Hoffnung forced a smile back. "I wasn't watching where I was going."

"What a nice well mannered boy, you are." The wife rubbed her obviously pregnant belly. "I hope my child can be as polite as you are, Young Man."

This time Hoffnung's smile was real. "I should like to see that."

The husband took his wife's arm and they walked on. He watched them until they turned a corner and disappeared. It seemed he had found he prey.

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Pike was wiping the windows wile Lillie polished the bar. Ahiru was mopping the floor. Ahiru was ALWAYS mopping the floor it seemed.

"Oh yeah." Pike turned her head over to Ahiru. "I forgot to introduce: I'm Pike."

"And I'm Lillie" Yet another smile from the girl.

"I'm Ahiru." She smiled back. She already knew that.

**Fin **for now...

Thanx to:

Fish Head the 3rd and Co.: there shall be much much more of all the things you described in your rev. I'm happy to have made you squeal so much.

James Birdsong: happy to make you laugh

TIred: you should really read past ch. 4 you actually get story that way.

Special thanx to Mirsa for adding me to her Story Alerts list.


	11. Omake: Mytho's Lament

Disclaimer: Not mine, don't own it.

(A/N: This is an Omake, an extra side note that is parallel but separate from the story. Don't confuse it with the next chapter, you may skip it if you wish but you'll be missing some good humor.)

Omake: Mytho's Lament

An extremely frustrated and annoyed Mytho walked out on to the stage as the curtain closed on chapter ten. His snow white hair was tossed and mess and fell over the shoulders of a soft and comfy looking royal blue house robe. He looked like he had just stormed out of the dressing room in a huff (which he had).

"What ever happened to my part?" he began what sounded like a long rant. "It was exiting at the start. We've finished chapter ten, and ain't it just great," (sarcasm) "I haven't been seen since eight! I've been off stage for far to long! It's been ages since I had a dance number!"

He began pacing back and forth from stage right to stage left and back again.

"I am one unhappy divo, the author has deceived me! There is nothing I can dance from my heart!"

He traced a wide heart over his chest, his fingers pulling at the collar of his robe to reveal a bare chest with lean muscles that would have made the fan girls squeal if they didn't already know that Good Mytho was an annoying pansy.

"WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO MY PART?" he repeated. "I am sick of my career, always starting second gear, up to here-" he held his hand level with his neck "-with frustration and fears! I've no Otaku, no rewards, no Anime Awards! I'm constantly replaced by freaking OCs, damn OCs!"

He began passing again shouting directly at this author with each step.

"What ever happened to my show!? I was a hit now I don't know, I'm strung up on puppet strings inside a freaking rusty clock! I might as well go to the pub, forgotten me have you? Well, you can kiss my arse! It seems to me Renkon's really lost the plot! What ever happened to my... I'll call my agent, damn it! What ever happened to MY part!"

He stormed back off stage just in time for the curtain to rise on chapter eleven.

(A/N: Okay, peeps. I want to thank you all for reading and adding me to your Alerts and Favorites list, those of you that did. But... wile favs are flattering and alerts encouraging, what I need more are reviews. Reviews help me improve my writing and my stories. Wile fan fictions are fun, for me they are merely a means to improving my own writing skills. So if my chapters are choppy or confusing: tell me. If the flow of the narration is all wrong: tell me. If you think the story is cliche and silly: tell me! Or if you think I'm overly critical of myself and in your opinion my writing is fine... tell me that to. Just give me some sort of feed back, don't leave me hanging. Please.)


	12. The Child Part 2

Disclaimer: Not mine.

Vignette Eleven: The Child (part two)

Now that her detention was over and done with Ahiru wanted nothing more than to visit Retzel and talk girly talk about the up coming baby. She smiled her goofy smile and trotted down the lane that led to Fakir's house where Retzel and Hanz were staying. Fakir. Yeah, she should talk to Fakir to. Not about girly stuff and babies but about the story and their plan for rescuing Mytho. She hadn't spoken to or even seen Fakir all day, she hoped he wasn't still upset about yesterday's argument.

**"...you're still the same old JERK!**" That had been uncalled for and unfair. He wasn't the same old jerk, was in-fact not a jerk at all. What was it he had said no more than a week ago (in ch. 2)? "...now that I'm trying to write about you..." He had been trying to tell her story, to write a happy ending for the heroin of the "Prince and the Raven" that no one else would acknowledge. Didn't that make him a truer and dearer friend than even Rue?

It was strange, whenever she felt weak or inadequate Fakir was always there, strong and supporting. Just like he had been down in the depths of the lake of despair (from ep. 27). It seemed that more and more Fakir was becoming her hero and Mytho was being cast by the wayside. Fakir HAD saved her from Hoffnung's seductions, even if she'd never admit it to his face, he had and she was grateful for that. Strong and supporting, that was what Fakir had become for her. A pillar of strength and a shoulder for support as a true knight should be.

SPACE

"...as a true knight should be."

His piecing gaze scrutinized the last sentence he'd just written. A "true knight", but he had shed the empty role of the useless knight, hadn't he? That story was over now anyway. This was HIS story, HE was the author, he shouldn't have an exact role. But... the little voice in his head whispered, if you don't have an exact role then how can your heroin fall in love with you? That was the problem. He couldn't make Ahiru love him and stay the objective author. He had to become a character, but to become a character was to relinquish control of the story.

Control.

Which did he want more at the moment? Love or control? His knee jerk answer was "Ahiru" which would be love, but what he needed most at the moment was the control to stop Hoffnung and save Mytho. That was what he HAD to do. But he wasn't sure if Mytho was even worth saving anymore. He'd had his happy ending, he and Rue had had their's! Where was HIS? His and Ahiru's? Didn't they deserve a happy ending as well? They had suffered just as much as Mytho and Rue! Where was the equality? The fairness?

Fairness.

He looked back down at the paper he'd written. It wasn't fair to force Ahiru to love him. Not only was it not fair but it wasn't right, it wasn't true. They'd be living a lie and he would know it. A memory of Mytho surfaced in his mind.

"If the love I'm seeking is 'False Love' then all the love in the world is FALSE!"

That had been episode twenty, when Mytho had tried to steal Retzel's heart and Tutu had stopped him. She'd woken Retzel from her trance by reminding her of her feelings for both Karon and Hanz and asking her if it was really worth it to throw her true feelings away for a false and twisted love instead. Retzel still loved Karon more than Hanz, Fakir knew that, that was why she wanted Karon as her child's godfather but she had settled for Hanz.

Settled.

If Ahiru still loved Mytho more than him, would she settle like Retzel had? Would she marry Fakir because he was the best she could get when everything was said and done? Would he be happy knowing she'd settled? Would she still even be human when this was all over? No. She WOULD be human still. He'd see to that. Mytho had had his chance at a happy ending. And If he couldn't keep Mytho's shard he'd find another, he'd give her his own if she would just love him!

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Ahiru paused in her step when her thoughts of Fakir stopped suddenly and abruptly. So abrupt was it that at first she couldn't remember what she had just been thinking about. Upon remembering it was Fakir, she then started wondering what had started her on that. She was on her way to see Retzel and... Oh yeah! Retzel. She was staying at Fakir's house. That was it! Her trademark goofy grin plastered itself on her face once again.

"I wonder if it'll be a girl or a boy..." She said aloud. "I bet a girl will be really cute and pretty just like Retzel-san."

"What are you babbling about?"

Ahiru turned around to see that it was not a person whom had spoken but a walking pile of books. Thick heavy looking books to be exact. Rue stood next to the pile, a single thin paperback in her hand.

"Be polite." She reproached the legged books. "We were bringing some research material over to Fakir's." She was addressing Ahiru now. "I thought some of these might help him with his writing." She indicated the book pile who's legs now looked like they were going to buckle soon if they didn't start moving again.

"Not to be rude..." the book pile said. "But could we maybe get going?" A thick book with a hard red leather cover fell from the peak to land at Ahiru's feat.

She picked the book up. Something about Book Pile-san's voice sounded familiar. "Ah! Autor-kun!" She reached for the books. "Let me help you with this."

After the books had been equally distributed between Ahiru and Autor (Rue still carried only the one) they make their way to Fakir's. Retzel opened the door for them, she explained that Fakir wasn't home from school yet and that he seemed very dedicated to his writing to stay so late. The trio gave an awkward laugh and she asked if they would stay and wait for him. They agreed. That was when Hanz came down from the stairs looking through the pockets of his coat.

"Retzel dear, I can't seem to find my wallet." He said.

She turned to her husband. "Could you maybe have dropped it when you bumped into that boy?"

"You know, I think you might be right." He kissed her sweetly. "Will you stay and look for it here wile I go and find that kid?"

"Of course." A smile.

He left. Rue and Ahiru stood in unison.

"You know, you shouldn't really be doing any strenuous bending or lifting in your condition." Rue seemed adamant. "It puts extra stress on the developing fetus and can cause lasting effects."

"I'll look for you Retzel-san." Replied Ahiru ever the Mary-Sue.

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Hoffnung strolled lazily down the lane tossing the wallet he'd nicked from one hand to the other. Pick-pocketing was a skill head learned the first time he'd run away. After Mytho had locked him in that tower he played the obedient son for a few days before realizing that Father hadn't moved him their for his own benefit, he'd put him there to forget about him. That was when he flew the coop, quite literally. It was exhilarating, hearing the adrenalin pumping in his ears as he flew over the palace wall and to the lands beyond. The first rebellious thing he'd ever done.

His first night out in the world after a life lived within the confines of his parents' castle and what does the wayward Prince do but befriend a gang of grungy little street urchins. And one of them actually was an urchin, a sea urchin. They were the first real friends he'd ever had and they were the ones that taught him how to pick-pocket. He was rather good at it to. Not that he was one to brag or anything... Things had gone south with his friends, however, when he had gotten hungry.

One of them, a cute little girl with a dirt smeared face and messy blond pigtails had offered him a crust of bread and upon seeing the glow of kindness on her cheeks, the aura of purity around her form... he'd eaten her heart.

That incident had caused Mytho to capture him and return him to the palace.

Hoffnung paused in his step. He didn't want to get to close to the writer's house, the place his pray was staying. An expecting father. He hated fathers, it didn't matter if it was his own or a stranger they were all the same. Selfish. Uncaring. Negligent.

Mytho had lead him shame faced back to the castle in the dead of night. He was sure he was going to be returned to his prison of a tower when they had changed direction and taken a dark staircase down ward.

"Where are we going?" He'd asked, still a little innocent and naive.

Mytho hadn't responded, he simply lead Hoffnung deeper into the bowls of the castle until they reached the lowest level of the dungeons. Mytho lead him to the most secure of cells and opened the door wide to reveal an almost comfortable bed room. The narrow cot that occupied most of the dungeon's cells had been replaced by a mahogany four poster bed with burgundy colored hangings. The floor was covered by a carpet of the same dark color, there was a small dresser, a bookshelf and an oil lamp but no windows. No entrances or exits save the one Mytho now held open for him.

That was when the glass bubble of naivete had shattered.

"No! No I won't."

He refused to enter his new prison, fighting tooth and nail against his father. Mytho had forced him in however, and slammed the door before Hoffnung could rush it. He had clawed at the door, banged on it, tried to break it with his shoulder. Finally he sank to his knees and just called through it.

"Please, Father, let me out! I promise I'll be good. I'll eat nothing but soy! Please, I'll be a good son. Please! ...please..."

...please...

He punched the side of the nearest building, his fist leaving a hole in the dry-wall plaster. Hoffnung examined his hand as if he'd never seen his own blood before, before licking his hand clean. Fresh blood always made a good appetizer for Pure Hearts.

Hoffnung glimpsed the man rush out of the Shmied down the lane. He was doing this kid a favor, eating his father's heart before it's even born...

The man saw Hoffnung down the lane and set off for him at a light jog.

"Hi ya." Hoffnung began when the man reached him, not giving him the opportunity to speak first. "I think you dropped this back there." He held up the wallet.

"Yes. Thank you, Young Man." Hoffnung dropped the wallet in Hanz's grateful hand. "Is there anything I can do for you in return?"

"Actually, there is." The Raven Prince lead him off the main road and into a back ally just in time to miss being seen by Fakir returning home to fess-up to Ahiru.

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Fakir hurried home. The sun had long since set and darkness spread itself over the town like a cat over your key board when you're writing a fan fiction. He came up short when the Shmied was in sight, pausing in his step, his eyes cast down to scrutinize the cobble stone street. Did he really have to confess to Ahiru? Nothing had come of it and he'd never try it again... at least not until this story was over. So what was the need?

Of course, if she found out through other means, say the plot hole Renkon Nairu was conveniently leaving open for herself, the in-suing conflict would be devastating. Ahiru would hate him forever and... no she wouldn't hate him, Ahiru was incapable of the emotion. She would be disappointed in him. An image of her bright blue eyes, usually wide with cheer, slightly hooded as she regarded him. "I thought you were better than Drosslemyer-san, Fakir." She would say, or say something like it. He shook his head to clear the images.

He would tell her, just not in-front of Rue or Retzel or anyone else whom it was no concern of. It would be a conversation between him and her and when she asked him why he would say... what? That he did it 'cause he was in love with her? That'd get a laugh. She would say that it couldn't possibly be love if he felt he needed to force the feeling in her. Hmm... Maybe he should wait until the opportune moment presented itself. Moments like that always presented themselves in stories like this.

He crossed the remainder of distance between himself and his house and entered the front door.

"Hanz!" He was greeted by Retzel's smile. "Oh, Fakir, it's you. Did you see Hanz out side? He's been gone a wile."

Fakir stared blankly, Ahiru was down on her hands and knees apparently looking for something under the stove, Autor (what was Autor doing here?) was like wise on hand and knee searching the opposite side of the room. Rue sat calmly at the kitchen table sipping tea. "No." He answered her question.

"Oh, I'm getting worried, he's been gone to long." She crossed one arm under her breast and put the other hand up to her face in a "dear me" gesture.

"Where'd he go?"

"He went out looking for this boy that we bumped into earlier today. I think he dropped his wallet then." She began pacing up and down the room. "But he's been gone for far too long..."

"Well, what did this boy look like?" Fakir asked. "I'll go out and look for the both of them."

"He was about your age with wild-ish hair as black as the night sky and a handsome face like... I can't remember. A boy you used to play with, Fakir. I don't quite remember his name..."

"Mytho!" Fakir supplied in a voice that betrayed anxiety.

Rue stood, so did Ahiru, rising from her place on the floor with a worried expression. Autor looked over his shoulder slightly but no one noticed, all eyes were on Retzel. A boy with black hair and Mytho's face... that could only be Hoffnung. Fakir rushed from the house, his ledger and quill in hand.

"I'll come with you!" Ahiru fallowed after.

"Me too!" So did Rue.

The trio jogged down the lane as a brilliant crimson light emanated from Ahiru's pendant, lighting their path. Her body was swepped up in the usual sparkly storm that formed and solidified into the golden egg, the egg then dissolved to revel the form of Princess Tutu. She landed en pointe in-front of Fakir.

"Tutu, can you jete over the buildings to find them faster?" The pony tailed writer asked.

"Sure." She took to the air with ease.

"I'll help too!" Rue made a jete after her, taking off from where she stood and gliding through the air to land just a little ahead of Fakir. She looked down at her school uniform, at her shoes, at the cobbles of the street. She turned her face back to Fakir. "A little help here."

"What are you trying to do?" He blinked in confusion.

"Make me Princess Kraehe." She commanded.

"Are you sure that's such a good idea?" Fakir lifted one critical eyebrow at her.

"Just do it." She crossed her arms over her breast. "Do you want to save Retzel's husband or not?"

He lifted his dried quill to to his lips and moistened the flaking ink with his tong. He scribbled a few lines on a blank page in his ledger and glanced up to see two crows, their feathers the color of midnight, flutter down to Rue's feet and morph into black toe shoes. She gingerly stepped into then and no sooner had both her dainty feet nestled within the soft material than a dark mist swirled and swam around her body, tearing her clothing and replacing the woolen school uniform with the dark satin and ebony feathers of a Raven's tutu.

She examined the soft black material, it felt strange wearing it again after so long. He hair pulled up to mimic one large black feather atop her head, the ebony colored cloth that covered her breast and slithered down her belly to meet just bellow her naval, the feather trimmed hem of the tutu... yes it all felt very strange after so long.

"What are those marks around your belly button?" Fakir's voice popped the bubble of nostalgia that had formed around her.

She glanced down at her stretch marks, not just on her stomach but also breast on the sides and her thighs, although the tights hid those. She covered her exposed belly button with an embarrassed arm. "Well, you see, Fakir, when a woman has a child her body..." she trailed off and finally stopped upon the sight of Fakir's bright red face. "Never mind. I think maybe the costume could do with a little tweaking."

"Fashion complaints at a time like this?" But he none the less began writing again.

SPACE

The feathery garb she now wore was not meant for her anymore. It was the costume of a different Kraehe, a different role all together. She was different now. No longer a Princess of the Ravens but a Queen. Their queen. The Ravens would answer to her, to Queen Kraehe!

SPACE

Fakir looked up just in time to see the end of what might have been a Tutu style transformation. Not a golden egg but a silver one melted away to reveal a new Kraehe, still clad in all black, but now with silver trim on the hem and over the breast of her tutu a tutu which now covered her entire belly.

She nodded in approval of the costume. "I'm off to save the day." She grinned at Fakir and took to the air after Tutu.

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Princes Tutu landed on the roof of a building no more than two blocks from Fakir's house and peered down into the ally behind it. As luck of the draw would have it, that was the exact ally way that Hoffnung had lead Hanz in order to steal his heart. A process of which he was in the exact middle of right now.

Hanz was suspended by a chorus of Crow costumed minions in the process of bearing the tranced gentleman to their master who was himself perched atop his own chorus of Crow clad minions. His arms outstretched, wings at full span... he looked quite menacing (although not as cool as the original Evil Mytho).

"That's right, Hanz, come to me." The ebony Prince commanded.

"Yes..." Actually he was being carried, not going to Hoffnung of his own power but since when did Anime characters fuss over detail?

"Give yourself to me."

"Yes..." He was being taken, not giving himself freely, but again why fuss over detail?

"You mustn't!" Princess Tutu leapt from her perch atop the building and landed perfectly en pointe behind the Crow Person Palanquin bearing Hanz. "Hanz-san, is this really what you want? To give your heart away to a monster? What about Retzel-san? Didn't you already give your heart to her?"

"Ret...zel..." He opened his eyes weakly. "Retzel. I wanted to give her the world." He extended his arms up to the moon high in the sky, to high, to far out of reach, unattainable. "But I couldn't, I can't. I'm not good enough for her, never was."

"That's not true, Hanz-sa-"

"It hurts, doesn't it?" Princess Tutu was cut off by her dark feathered adversary. "It hurts knowing that you're a failure. That the people -the person" (he corrected himself) "you love most hate and scorn you."

"Retzel-san doesn't do that." Tutu said, more to herself than anyone else.

"I cam make it all better. I can make the hurt go away! Just give me you beautiful PURE HEART!!"

"Yes..." Once again the Crow costumed lackeys lifted Hanz and bore him to their master.

"You mustn't!" This time it was not Tutu who cried out but one who could only be described as what a Raven Princess hoped to be when she grew up.

"Reu-chan?" Tutu asked tentatively. "What are you doing...? Who are...?"

"Rave Queen Kraehe." She supplied. Queen Kraehe spread her arms wide, her own set of massive dark wings appearing from no where, her own entourage of Crow costumed minions lifted her up off the cobbles of the street. "Now, Hanz, come to me instead!"

"Kraehe what are you doing?" Tutu asked, shocked and dismayed.

The minions changed directions and slowly started bearing Hanz over to their Queen instead of their Prince.

"NO! Come to ME!" Hoffnung shouted in annoyance. Once again the minions changed directions, returning this time to their Prince.

"Wouldn't you rather sacrifice your heart to a woman?!" Kraehe called.

The simple minded lackeys were now so confused that they began to sink into the ground, fusing with the very stones of the ally way in which they stood. The slightly dazed and very confused Hanz was left standing in the spot where they had vanished looking like he was about to have a break-down.

"Now, Tutu!" Kraehe commanded. "Do your goody goody hero stuff!"

Princess Tutu nodded at the command and circled her arms over her head, she then extended her hand palm upturned to Hanz."Dance with me, Hanz-san?"

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Fakir jogged in the same general direction that he'd seem Tutu and Kraehe fly, not knowing whether or not her was any nearer or farther from where he was needed.

"Fakir!" He turned to see Autor with Karon and Retzel in tow.

"What are you three doing out here?" He raised the same questioning eyebrow at them that he had at Rue.

"She wanted to help us look." Autor indicated Retzel (obviously, seeing as how she was the only "she" in this scene). "And he wasn't going to let her go out alone." Here he indicated Karon. "And I wasn't going to sit alone in someone else's house wile they weren't home. That would be really uncouth."

"Fine." Fakir nodded. "Autor, you can help me find Princess Tutu." This he whispered. "She should be with our wayward father to be right now..."

Autor nodded, then remembered that he wasn't supposed to know as much as he did and asked in what he hoped was a surprised voice: "Princess Tutu? For a missing person's report? Jeez, Fakir, the term 'over-kill' has no meaning for you."

"Just help me look."

He nodded again, looked around, noticed one of Hoffnung's black feather's on the ground near a trash can and pointed to the ally of which it was placed. "That way." He said.

"How'd you know?" Fakir asked.

"My know-it-all sense is tingling." Autor rolled his eyes dramatically. "Now let's go."

The quartet rushed down the ally to find none other than Princess Tutu dancing a pas de duex with Hanz wile Queen Kraehe kept an infuriated Hoffnung occupied.

"Gang's all here, I see." Observed the peeved Raven Prince. He made a move towards Tutu and his prey, but was intercepted by, not Kraehe, but Karon.

"I don't know who you are or where you come from..." He said, brandishing a pair or black smith tongs like a sword. "...but I won't let you spoil Retzel's happiness!"

He swung the long pair of tongs in a wide ark but the Raven Prince dogged expertly. He, however, was not expecting the middle aged black smith to be double wielding and instead of being struck by the tongs, came in contact with the hammer.

Hoffnung stumbled backwards, sure he now had internal bleeding. Kraehe rushed over to him, concern clear on her face. He may be an evil, self serving villain but he was till her son.

He pushed her away and fix the gang of heros with a glare of utmost acidity, over flowing with undiluted hatred. The glare remained plastered to his face as a dark mist and cloud of feathers swirled around him and he vanished.

Princess Tutu finished her pas de deux with Hanz and sent the no longer entranced victim back to his relieved wife.

"Thank you, Princess Tutu." They spoke unanimously.

She gave a plie like bow in response. The happy couple left arm and arm together. Tutu then turned to Karon. "You're in love with her, aren't you? You have been all this time! Why didn't you say anything before she got married?"

Karon suddenly looked very awkward. "I well... she... you see... I too old for her!" He said at last.

"True love is ageless." Queen Kraehe informed him. "But to bring your feelings to her now would destroy the happiness she's made for herself." She cast him a humorless smile. "If it's any consolation to you: she's still in love with you too. That's why she wanted you as her child's Godfather."

"I..." He was lost for words.

"Alright you people," Fakir broke the ensuing silence. "I still have to live with them for a wile, so don't go creating any unnecessary domestic strife in my house!"

All fell into silent obedience.

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Femio was enjoying an evening stroll in the moonlight, appreciating how beautiful his reflection looked in the waters running bellow the school's bridge. Yes, he truly was one whom was qualified to be a true Prince among men. His dashing debonair beauty, his angsty romanticism, the was Montove sprinkled the rose petals at his passing! Why it was almost to much for one man to bear!

Just when he was ready for Montove to call in the bull and punish this unworthy sinner, a swirl of dark mist appeared and from a cloud of feathers fell a boy. The dark figure moved as if to stand but them fell back to the ground.

Femio knelt beside him. "For such a mysterious and beautiful stranger to be so hurt!" He offered Hoffnung not a helpful hand but a thorny rose bud. "Were you set upon by ruffians?"

He didn't reply, merely just stared up at this abysmally stupid fellow he was unfortunate enough to have fallen by.

"For such brigand to be roaming the city! Why it's more than I can bear!" He placed a dramatic hand to his forehead as if to swoon. "Fair Stranger, what shall I do for you? How may I help you in this hour of need? For you see I am one who is qualified to be a true Prince among men! So I ask again: what can I do for you?"

_You can shut-up._ He thought. "Give me..." he began weakly. "Give me..."

"Yes?" Femio bent down closer.

"YOUR HEART!" He grabbed the false prince by the collar of his school uniform and pined him to the ground, straddling the poor stupid boy to minimize struggling. He plunged his hand deep into the flamboyant boy's chest and with drew a small lavender colored jewel with a faint, almost none existent glow. "Not much." He scoffed. "This'll barely sustain me the end of the night, let alone the week, like the flower girl's did." Never the less he popped in his mouth and swallowed it whole.

Montove and the bull, whom had been watching this all take place went dashing from the scene as fast as their respective legs could carry them. Both screaming like twelve year old girls. Yes, the bull screamed too.

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Karon and Fakir entered their home in awkward silence.

"Oh, you're back." Retzel's smile greeted the both of them. "Welcome home."

She had made dinner for all of them and it was spread over the table in a way that made any one no matter how lonely or love sick feel like they were home.

"Oh yeah." Hanz suddenly remembered something. "On our way home, we met an acquaintance of yours, Fakir."

"Of mine?"

"Yeah. He said he wanted you to stop by his club tomorrow after school. Called it the Book Men."

**Fin** for now...

Thanx to:

Fish Head The 3rd and Co.: You are the one author of which I have been coming into contact with the most lately. I'm starting to feel like I'm writing this fic just for you...

James Birdsong: I'm glad you think so. Seeing as I'm the one writing it, I only see the flaws.

Special thanx to RodentOfUnusualSize and Kage Mistress of Shadows for adding me to their Alerts list.


	13. Vignette 12

Disclaimer: Don't own Tutu...

Vignette Twelve:

Autor arrived back at the dorms just in time to watch his homicidal room mate crawl through the open window and haphazardly make his way to collapse on the bed. He laid flat on his back clutching the side where Karon had hit him.

"Moron's heart... didn't help enough..." He heard the sadist mutter, more to himself than to Autor.

Not knowing quite what to do Autor walked over to the disabled Rave, keeping just out of arms reach of the bitter bird boy. Asking what was wrong was stupid and pointless, he'd seen exactly what had happened, knew that Hoffnung most likely had a broken rib or ribs and probably some internal bleeding as well. Instead he asked: "Is there anything I can do to help?"

Slowly, experimentally, he opened one heavy eyelid to look at Autor. He regarded the boy in silence before finally answering. "No... I need your pen more..." and shut his eye once more.

It didn't occur to Autor until the ebony Prince was fast asleep that he had been considering stealing his heart!

"I need your pen more..." He may be just a pawn, but as long as he was useful to Hoffnung, this pawn still had his life.

He laid awake, for the first time since his arrival from out of the story, Autor was afraid to sleep in the same room as Hoffnung. The Raven needed him but he also wouldn't hesitate to rip his heart from it's still beating chest if that was more useful to him than Autor himself. He HAD to remain useful to Hoffnung, as a matter of survival.

That meant going along with the crazy double agent idea. He had agreed, albeit in-cinsearly, to spy for the homicidal teen because it would bring him closer to Rue. Closer to his goal, the one thing he seemed to want since the world had ceased to dance to Drosslemyer's tune. He didn't exactly want to spy on Fakir though. The other boy was a tad brutish and wouldn't hesitate to pound his face in at the revelation of a betrayal. Though, given the choice, he'd rather get a beating from Fakir than louse his humanity to Hoffnung.

Autor rolled over and tried to push all thought from his mind. 'When had it all gotten so complicated?'

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'The Book Men...' thought Fakir. 'What could they possibly want with me now?'

Memories of the robed vigilante librarians tacked his minds eye. Once again they were there, hovering just behind him while he was trying to commune with the oak tree. They were pulling him by his arms while his legs kicked franticly to escape. He was drug to a grave, Drosslemyer's grave. They forced him to his knees, placed his hands in a vise, the ax was raised and then...

He sat bolt up right in bed. He didn't know quite when it was that he'd fallen asleep, but the sky through the window was now a soft pinkish color not un-like Ahiru's hair. 'Ahiru...' He smiled and wiped the cold sweat from his brow. Ahiru had saved him that day. Swooping down upon them and knocking the Book Men back with her sheer au inspiring presence. He would be fine so long as he had Ahiru.

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"Ne, Rue-chan?" Rue and Ahiru had set off from the dorms together and Ahiru had not shut-up since. "What was it like being Kraehe again? Did you like it? Was it fun? It's nice being the hero, huh?"

Rue remained politely silent.

"I first became Princess Tutu because I wanted to see Mytho smile. But I bet you get to see that all the time!" She smiled her goofy grin, the one that it seemed only Ahiru could pull off. "Mytho has such a pretty smile. I remember when he smiled for you at the Fire Festival, he looked so gentle and affectionate. I should have know back then that it was you he was in love with..." An awkward laugh.

Rue gave an apologetic smile but still remained quiet and pensive.

"You're worried about Hoff-chan, aren't you, Rue-chan?"

No response.

"I'm sure he'll be fine." Undiluted optimism. "He is a Raven after all. I know it looked like Karon-san hit him really hard but he shouldn't be that bad. I'm sure he's got some super cool really really fast healing powers! He'll be right there in the Advanced Class with you like nothing happened!" She gave Rue her most encouraging smile ever.

"Thank you, Ahiru."

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"You sure you're not coming?" Autor asked as he pinned the amber broach to his cravat (that's the tie like thingy in their uniforms).

Hoffnung stood facing the window, arms crossed over his chest with strait almost rigid posture and his back to Autor, he to be the epitome of wicked Princelyness. "It will give my mother something to worry about other than my father."

"I'd think you'd want to cause her less worry, not more." He shrugged the light blue blazer/jacket on over his shoulders. "I sure as heck don't like to see her worried or sad. But then again I guess my opinion doesn't matter, does it?"

"You will tail Fakir today." He never turned from the window and his tone was quiet but commanding. "Keep him away from Princess Tutu."

"Why?" He blinked at Hoffnungs unexpressive back.

"My agenda is my own!" The Ebony Prince snapped. "Just keep him away from her for the day. All I need is a day and her trusting nature and good faith will do the rest. And Autor..." for this he finally turned to face him, pivoting on his left foot. There must still have been pain running the length of his right side. "... meet me at the clock tower tonight to discus how to take care of that pesky writer for good."

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Ahiru was so proud of herself for not being late to class. It seemed that walking with Rue (whom was always on time) really was a good way to keep her from being late and there for keep her out of detention. She smiled brightly as she entered the room, she had arrived before the teacher. In her oblivious cheer she failed to notice a classmate in her path and trod over his foot.

"Wah! Femio-san, I'm sorry!" The pink princess exclaimed at the sensation of another's foot beneath hers. "I was spacing out there and didn't see you. You're not hurt are you? You are hurt aren't you?"

Femio gazed at her with blank empty eyes. "No." He said in an usually quiet voice for him.

"Eh? Femio-san, are you alright?" This wasn't the loud braggart she was used to. Shouldn't her be saying something like: "Oh! For such a pure maiden to be stolen from her revery by my wicked toe! Why it is to much for me to bear!" Or something equally ridiculous. But today Femio was... quiet! Apathetic almost. She didn't know what to make of this new, more subdued false Prince. She didn't have time to make up her mind, however, because Madam Cat entered at that moment.

"Okay, everyone, settle down." She clapped her paws together. "If you don't **I shall have my ex-husband marry you!**"

Silence settled.

"Today you shall be having your biweekly exam to test your improvement and skills in the art that is ballet. "She smiled a cheshire cat grim. "I don't think I need to tell you what will happen if you do poorly."

The class lined up against the wall to watch as each in turn gave their performance. Ahiru, beginning with both the hiragana character "ah" and the english letter "a" was to be the first to be tested. She stood nervously and crossed to the center of the room where the teacher waited.

"I noticed you were on time today, Miss Ahiru." Madam Cat commented. "Good work, show me your dancing has improved along with your timing and I'll promote you to the normal class."

"H-hai."

She stretched, more for show than to loosen her muscles, she needed to think of a suitable dance to satisfy her expectant teacher. The first to come to mind was the solo pas de deux that had won back Mytho's heart from Kraehe, but that didn't seem right. Aside from the fact that a solo pas de deux would NOT impress Madam Cat, it just didn't feel right using that dance, a dance that had saved the Prince, to advance in school. It cheapened it somehow. She settled on the pas she had danced as a duck during the final fight with the original Raven.

Ahiru circled her hands above her head and lowered her palm to indicate the class as a whole. Mass mutterings started among them. "She wants us to dance with her?" "This is supposed to be a solo." "She can't have help." And other such whispers. Madam Cat narrowed her eyes at the motion.

Ahiru ignored all of this. She placed on foot in-front of the other, toes out, heels to the side. She raised herself on to her toes, not pointe, just her toes and began to slowly lower and raise her arms, mimicking the flapping of birds wings. The hum of students conversation died down as they all paused to watch her dance. True that it lacked the grace of Princess Tutu, but you could be sure that some pies of the Prima Dona was shining through.

Pivoting on one foot to spin her pirouette, she saw him out of the corner of her eye. Out side the window, not wearing his school uniform but his black tights and feathered tunic, Mytho's face crowned by Rue's hair: Hoffnung. Her solo pas finished she stood and stared back at him. He was just standing there. What was he waiting for.

"A good performance, Miss Ahiru." The teacher was saying. "You may advance to the Apprentice class."

"Uh... Ah, thank you, Madam Cat." She bowed awkwardly. "May I please be excused?"

The Cat teacher was taken aback by her sudden and urgent request. "Well, you've completed your test and that's all I had planed for today. I see no reason why I should make you stay..."

"Thank you." She was out of the room before anyone had registered that she'd spoken.

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Hoffnung grinned when he saw her rush out of class. The prey was coming to him of it's own accord. All he had to do was make sure his trap was perfectly set and flawlessly executed. He heard the door to the main building open and saw her step out. Now to lead her away from prying eyes and pesky writers.

All Ahiru saw when she exited the building was an empty courtyard. Where was Hoffnung? He seemed so content to just stand and watch her a moment a go. A sound of rustling leaves to her right made her turn. There, vanishing behind the foliage, was the divo's black feathered behind.

She followed him through the trees and brush until he finally stopped at the gazebo behind the school. Here he turned to face her, pivoting on his left foot to spare the right.

"Princess Tutu..." His eyes looked so desperate, so sad. He looked so much like Mytho...

Hoffnung suppressed a grin when he saw her eyes soften. She was playing right into his hands. His first attempt to seduce her had failed and failed miserably. True, it was more the Writer's fault than any fault of his own. But there was no point in taking needless risks. He had been to aggressive the first time. But not this time. This time he needed to be submissive, subtle.

"Hoff-chan, what's wrong?" Asked the naive princess.

And she was making it so easy for him, too. He wrapped his arm around his mid-section, his hand resting on the ribs that Karon had broken the previous night. "It hurts so much!" He tried to make his eyes water, but his tear ducts didn't work so he gave up on it.

She rushed to the wicked Prince's side to provide whatever help she could. "Is there anything I can?"

Gosh, did she always have to be so obnoxiously sweet all the time? Would it kill her to be just a little less selfless every now and then? True, her kind nature was what he was counting on to trap her but it was still irritating to be near such bright inner light. "There's nothing _you_ can do. There's nothing _anyone_ can do!" He made a show of pushing her away. "I'm beyond help! A lost cause..."

"That not true!" She balled her hands into fists. "That's not true at all, Hoff-chan! Rue-chan... Rue-chan loves you very much! She's worried about you. She wants to help you but she doesn't know how. And I want to help you to! But... but you need to help us too. You need to help us help you! Please, Hoff-chan, release Mytho from where ever it is that you're keeping him."

The little witch! She was playing him too. And to make it worse, she didn't even realize that she was doing it! "If you really wanted to help me, you would just give me that shard you wear. Only my father's complete heart can help me, Princess Tutu!" He hadn't meant to shout, he hadn't even meant to raise his voice. Why... why did it effect him so, whenever anyone mentioned his father? It was always Mytho! Mytho was such a strong and brave Prince. Mytho was a kind and noble Prince. Mytho was a fair and just King. Feh. Mytho was an irresponsible and cruel father!

"Hoff-chan..." Her eyes looked so sad. No... not 'sad'. It wasn't sadness that was overflowing from her eyes to wash over him and fuel his furry. It was pity. How dare she! How dare she pity him. Him! The Prince of the Ravens! He had to leave. He couldn't stay close to her. She always threatened to brake his carefully constructed barriers of control.

"I have to go." He turned to leave. "I still want that shard, Princess, and I will take it from you some day."

"I don't believe that." Was the last thing he heard her say before vanishing in a swirl of mist and feathers.

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Fakir stood in the street as drivers shouted profanities at him and pedestrians stared as they passed. He didn't notice. He was preoccupied with the scar on his hand. The scar he had received from himself, from trying to stop Drosslemyer from manipulating his immature power, from trying to save Ahiru from the Lake of Sorrow.

"You're going to get hit if you stand here, you know." The smug voice of Autor sounded from behind. Fakir felt a hand on his back shove him out of the street and onto the side walk. "What are you doing here, anyway?" He regarded the door to the old used book shop that was the Book Men's headquarters. "Planning to join, or just doing research? Or have you got a death wish now that your living with a hormonal pregnant woman caught in the middle of a love triangle?"

Death wish...?

He was dragged to a grave, Drosslemyer's grave. His hands placed in a vise, the ax raised...

He turned his mind's eye away from the memories. "No. I'm just here for business."

"Suit your self." Autor shrugged. "If it were me I wouldn't go in there ever again. Not after what they tried to do to us."

"Us?" Fakir scoffed but then remembered how Autor had cast regard for his own life aside as he had grappled with one of the Book Men trying to keep the crazed librarian from chopping his hands in mid-sentance. "Yeah. I don't really want to see them much either, but they may know why the story has started again. They may know who wrote it and why."

Autor fidgeted uncomfortably.

"I'll go with you." He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. "With my superior intelligence you'll need me far more that letter opener in your pocket."

Fakir shrugged. "Do as you please."

The two entered the book shop together, Fakir slightly ahead of Autor. The small room was dimly lit by a single candle on a desk to the far wall. It was at that desk that sat the leader of the Book Men, the one whom had dragged an ax and his own crow tainted body to Autor's house to try and sever Fakir's writing hands.

"My invitation was for Fakir only." The Book Man looked up from the volume he was pouring over. "No entourage was necessary."

Autor bit the inside of his cheek. "Yeah, well, Fakir didn't feel to happy having to come here alone, considering your past history, that is." He bit out defensively.

The man snapped shut the book and lifted it from the desk. "He may stay." He informed the two, though he was only looking at Fakir. "But he waits here. Fakir, come with me."

He lead the pony tailed author through a door to the right and down a hall lined with books to the point that you'd wonder if it were actually made from them. At the end of the hall he opened a door to one of the private reading rooms and indicated for Fakir to enter. His heart jumped and sank simultaneously when he recognized the room. The same one he'd stood in and had had Edel turn the page for him. Edel had turned the page he had been afraid to turn... because after it was the death of the night.

He spun around, expecting to have to dodge a swing of the ax or another weapon from the Book Man but he merely blinked in confusion at Fakir's sudden movement. He, apparently, didn't realize the significance of this room for Fakir. He walked passed the boy to pull a thick book from the shelf, this he extended to Fakir.

"Recognize this?" Asked he.

"The Prince and the Raven." Fakir supplied. "That story is over. I finished it."

"That you did." He nodded his balding head. "And here's your ending right here." He flipped through the pages, stopping just before they ran out and showed them to Fakir. "Don't ask me how they got in this book. I don't know. Stories have lives of their own and lost bits have ways of finding their way home." He closed the book and replaced it on the shelf. "I just wanted to make sure you remembered, unlike everyone else in this town."

"Is that all?" His eye narrowed suspiciously beneath a curtain of dark bangs.

"No..." Here the old man seemed unsure. "I wanted to see if you knew anything about this." He passed Fakir the book he'd been reading before he and Autor had entered the shop.

Fakir started at the sight of the cover. Like the original 'Prince and the Raven' there was a picture of a sword, crow and monster Raven. But unlike the 'Prince and the Raven' which had the crown over the sword and the monster Raven encircling them menacingly, this book featured the crown poised atop the Raven's brow with the sword threatening to strike and the title was 'The Prince _of_ the Ravens'. But what was the most worrisome to Fakir was the the author's name was his own.

"This is..." He was at a loss for words.

"This is your story, is it not?"

"This is impossible." He flipped the book open to the first page and read. _'The initial shock of seeing the Prince's nurse dead on the floor had faded quickly to be replaced by a cold sense of practicality... body had to disappear... No one could know the crown prince was a Raven!' _"I wrote this but... but I never showed it to anyone. How could it have gotten published? And this..." He leafed through the rest of the book. "Blank. All blank. The story isn't even finished! How could it have been published?"

"I told you before, didn't I?" The Book Man placed a hand on the boy's shoulder. "Stories have a life of their own. They seek out Writers, people with the gift, to give them birth. But that doesn't mean that all stories are set in stone. You proved that with the 'Prince and the Rave'. So, knowing this, what do you plan to do with the 'Prince of the Ravens'?"

"I'll finish it." He said with a great deal more conviction than the Book Man had anticipated. "I'll give it a happy ending, just like with the first story. After all... if I don't then the story will just continue to control this town just like before, right?"

The Book Man nodded. "One more thing, Fakir." He took the book from his hand and flipped to the last page that had writing on it. "Can you explain this?"

_'A pillar of strength and a shoulder for support as a true knight should be.'_ Fakir's heart sank again. The Book Man, this stranger had read what he'd written, all of what he'd written, even the stuff about Ahiru. He felt his face burning.

"It is my understanding that you had taken the role of the knight before you learned of your abilities." He seemed not to care for Fakir's frivolous affections. "You are walking a very sharp edge with that one. Authors CAN NOT become characters in their own stories. To do so would be to forfeit all control. If that happened... the story would spiral down into tragedy. And Fakir..." He pulled an ax seemingly from the darkness itself. "...I will NOT let that happen!" He lowered the ax. "THis is a warning. Be mindful of what you're writing."

Fakir nodded and left.

Autor looked so relieved when he returned, but the expression quickly vanished behind the glare of light reflecting from his glasses.

**Fin...** for now...

Thanx to:

Mirsa: Yes, I always thought the Princess Kraehe costume was a little risk-et.

Fish Head The 3rd and Co.: Thank you for your critique. Feed back is always welcome as is your intense energy.

James Birdsong: Always a pleasure.

Abi-chan-jishinibaka: I love your energy. All your revs are so 'loud' they really stand out in my mind.

Inufanfictionfan151: Really? I think he's cool BECAUSE he eats hearts... even if he is an OC...


	14. Not Yet Dead Part 1

Disclaimer: Not mine, don't own it... and all that jazz. Wait. Jazz? This is ballet!

Vignette Thirteen: Not Yet Dead

Anteaterina (I believe her name was Arakumiko in the Japanese ver.) was a determined ballerina. She was always practicing to be the best, always striving to surpass her secret rival. Rue-san, if she could just beat Rue-san and make it into the advanced class... 

Her dreams of stardom as a prima ballerina danced before her eyes as she practiced the pas she planed to use for her by-weekly test. Rue-san was the best, there for to surpass Rue was to be better than the best, to be the number one Prima Donna. 

The sudden opening of the practice room door interrupted her thoughts. 

"Oh, I'm sorry." Said the raven-haired boy upon seeing her. "I didn't know anyone else was in here." He turned to leave.

"Wait a moment." Anteaterina extended her paw. This boy was one of the transfer students; he was in the advanced class with Rue-san. If she could get him to dance a pas de deux with her then her admission into the advanced class would be a given. She would be that much closer to her goal, to her dream. "You're names Hoffnung-san, right?"

He inclined his head in a sight nod. The motion was so subtle, so calculated it made him seem regal, like a Prince. "And you're Anteaterita." 

"We could share the practice room. Goodness knows it's big enough." She spread her arms wide to emphasize her point. "And I don't know about you, but I could use some company."

A wicked grin spread over Hoffnung's face, Anteaterita interpreted it as a friendly smile. "Alright." He entered the room fully and closed the door behind him.

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Autor watched the sun spread it's crimson light over the Kinkon Town sky line as it set. Hoffnung was late. The adolescent sadist had told him to meet at the clock tower at sun down. All right, so the sun hadn't completely set. So he was a little early. He still expected his megalomaniac master to be here. It wasn't like he had anything else to do today, well, anything else besides doing what ever it was he was going to do to Princess Tutu. Not that he could do much anyway, what with his innards all scrambled like they were.

Autor sighed deeply and leaned against the story machine. What was he doing? Helping an evil, sadistic teenager with a "Daddy Hug Me" Complex... and he used to think of himself as a genius. Yeah. Real smart idea this was. Now he was betraying his friend, helping destroy the happiness of the one woman he'd ever truly loved and not to mention upsetting his home town's reality once again. But the worst thing was that now he had gotten himself into a position where he couldn't change anything. The story had to run it's course, if anyone could save the situation it was Fakir. But he seemed to be struggling with his own personal problems and now had Hoffnung plotting his downfall on top of it.

The entrance of said plotting Raven interrupted his thoughts. The ebony prince entered through the window, as usual, and landed in a _plie_ in front of Autor.

"You look better." The musician commented. "Still not using door, I see." He just had to make the comment. It wouldn't be a fan fiction if he didn't.

"I don't believe in them. Doors are just another way to keep people out." The logic didn't quite don on Autor, but 60 percent is always lost in translation (as anime fans well know). "And I'm feeling much better. Thank you for noticing. I dinned on a charming girl from the ballet class... huh... I can still call her a girl even if she's not human, right? She may have been an anthropomorphic ant eater but she was still female."

"Uh..." Autor sputtered. "I... uh... don't think it matters."

"Ah, well..." He shrugged his black-feathered shoulders. "We best be getting to work then." He grabbed Autor by the wrist and fluttered the both of them up into the mass of cogwheels that was the inside of the story.

He touched down on the cog that was surrounded by all the puppets on strings and released Autor. The poor by staggered for a moment before tripping over the poppet they had removed to make room for Mytho and left carelessly on the ground. 

"Bring that." Hoffnung ordered as he climbed back to his feet. "I need it for my plan. And hold this to, while you're at it." He passed him a copy of Drosslemyer's "The Prince and the Raven".

"Why th...?"

"All in due time." The ebony Prince strode over to where Mytho was strung up on puppet strings. "Hello, Father."

"Mytho." It was half statement and half question. 'You need Mytho to get rid of Fakir.' and 'Why do you need him to get rid of Fakir?'

"Yes, Mytho." The former protagonist mocked from his hanging position. "You couldn't possibly have forgotten about me already, have you? Sure I've been off stage for far to long..." (He glared pointedly at the fic author) "...but I'm still instrumental in everyone's evil plans! I'm always instrumental in evil plans." The last part was said under his breath so only you readers could hear.

"I didn't mean..."

"That's right, Father, you're going to help me get rid of you best friend and former roommate." He grinned maliciously. "Autor, open the book and tare out the page where the knight dies."

"But Fakir's not the knight anymo..."

"Do as I say!" 

He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and obeyed. Leafing through the pages he stopped on the one with an image depicting a knight in full body armor being torn in two by an enormous black talon that was meant to represent the Raven. He gave the page an experimental tug, then pulled a little harder when he was sure his tearing wouldn't damage the picture and the page was ripped free from the book's binding. 

"Hold onto that for me." Hoffnung said when the page was extended to him. He then turned back to Mytho. "Now then, for your part, Father..." He plucked a single dark feather from his costume and transfigured it into a scalpel. "Your heart's already in two pieces, a few more shouldn't hurt... much!" 

That said he began his surgery.

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Several agonizing hours latter Mytho finally fell unconscious, letting the dark oblivion of the comma claim him. That was when Hoffnung finally found the feeling he was looking for. Wrenching it free from the rest of the gem that was his father's heart he withdrew the shard from his chest. 

"What now?" Asked a thoroughly creeped-out Autor. 

Hoffnung didn't answer, he merely picked up the poppet from it's place on the floor and grabbed the page from Autor's hands. "Just watch."

He placed the paper over the puppet's chest and stabbed the shard into it, pinning the piece of the story to the spot where the doll's heart should be. Hoffnung stepped back just as it was swept up in a cloud of dark blue and gray shoujo sparkles with random specks of silver blinking here and there.

What rose from the cloud seconds later was not a puppet, not a doll, but a man of flesh and blood. A man with long dark hair and piercing green eyes. A man whom looked exactly like Fakir. 

"How do you feel, Knight?" Asked Hoffnung.

"I feel..." Stiff, like I've been laying on a brass wheel for weeks. Confused, 'cause I was just born a second ago. "... resentful! Where is the one that stole my role and then failed to protect my Prince?"

Hoffnung grinned his wicked grin and extended his hand to the Knight but said nothing. 

As he and the knight were leaving Autor walked up beside them and whispered in the ebony Prince's ear: "What do you want me to do with the other pieces?" He jerked his head back to indicate the other heart shards that Hoffnung had removed in his search for the one Knight now carried. 

"Leave them for now." He replied. "I'll need Princess Tutu to put them back."

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The best thing about living with Retzel and Hanz in the house was that breakfast was always ready by the time he got down stairs in the mornings. The worst thing about living with Retzel and Hanz was the Karon was always retreating in to the forge whenever Retzel was present. This meant the he was almost always absent from breakfast and Fakir deeply missed his godfather's presence at mealtime. That was why he'd taken the initiative today to personally drag Karon out of his self-imposed exile and force him to socialize with the family.

The old blacksmith raised his head when he heard the door to the forge open and close without any knock for permission.

"Morning." Fakir said sheepishly.

"Guten morgan." replied Karon before returning to his work. To Fakir's mild surprise, he was not hammering formless scraps of metal into something resembling anything, but was instead polishing a very old sword. A sword Fakir knew well, the Lohengrin Sword. Fakir bit his lower lip as he was reminded of just how useless he had been as a knight. How useless he still felt even as a writer. 

"What are you doing with that?" He hoped it sounded casual enough.

"I thought I'd display it in the shop." He held it up to examine the finely polished shine it now had. "Although I didn't make it, I thought it'd be good advertising for the shop. 'See the famous Sword of Lohengrin.' Or something. What do you think?"

Fakir was quiet for a moment; his eyes were tracing the familiar lines of the hilt. Finally, he said in a flat voice: "Do as you please." And left the room.

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It was Ahiru's first day in the normal ballet class, she had left the dorms early that morning to avoid any chance of being late and was now sitting alone in an empty studio. She sighed in resignation. Even when she was being responsible she was still a klutz. At least now she couldn't be docked for being late. Another sigh.

Well if she was going to be this early she could at least be more productive. After all, now that she was back in the normal class she was determined to stay there. The best thing to do with this extra time then, was to practice. As the old Neko-sensei used to say: "The first rule in ballet is to practice. The second is also Practice. The third: Practice!"

With his voice and those words in her mind she stood up and walked over to the bar. 

(Some time passes, but not enough to merit a "S P A C E")

So absorbed in her dancing was she, that she failed to notice Madam Cat enter the studio, and thus was quite startled when she commented on her form.

"Very nice, Miss Ahiru." The pink princess spun around to see her feline teacher standing in the center of the room with her legs crossed in a _pliet_ and her arms like wise crossed over her chest. "I admire your determination and passion for the art." A gentle smile spread over her furry face. "But I'm afraid we won't be dancing today. Instead we're going on a field trip to the Kinkon Ballet Theater to see a production choreographed by…" a dark aura seemed to surround Madam Cat, "… choreographed by my ex-husband."

"Ah… I see." _Her ex-husband,_ thought the day dreamy duck girl, _I wonder who that could be…_

"Go change back into your school uniform, Miss Ahiru." Ordered the peeved professor.

"Y-yes, Ma'am!" She rushed for the door.

"And, Miss Ahiru…" Madam Cat stopped her. "If you are late meeting up with the rest of the group **I shall have my ex-husband marry you!**"

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Ah, fieldtrips. The last time Rue had been on one was when Neko-sensei had taken them to see a production of Sleeping Beauty by a traveling ballet troop. It had been a good performance up until the point where Mytho, whom had been sitting next to her, suddenly jumped to his feet and cried out in horrible pain and fear. That had been when Princess Tutu had returned his shard of fear.

But that wasn't likely to happen this time. First of all, Mytho wasn't here. Secondly, if he were here his heart would be complete except for hope. At least, she thought it would be complete. Who knows what else Hoffnung might do in his frustration over failing (repeatedly).

Rue was startled out of her thoughts by a tap on the shoulder. She spun around to see Fakir standing in the group of ballet students gathering for the trip.

"Hey." He said.

"Oh, hi. What are you doing here?" She asked in blatant confusion. "You're not a ballet student any more."

"Yeah." He jerked his head at an older man on the other side of the crowd. "OC-sensei said that this ballet was supposed to be a perfect example of old fairy tales and legends influencing modern story telling. And that we could, as writers, benefit from seeing it. So it seems I'll be accompanying you on this trip."

She giggled behind her hand. "Well, I can't think of a more agreeable escort than you, Fakir."

"Is that sarcasm?"

Another giggle.

"Ah, what's so funny?" Fakir's heart jumped into his throat at the sound of Ahiru's innocently inquisitive voice. "I wanna hear the joke too. Come on, Fakir, what'd you say?"

Gosh, could she be any cuter? "We were just discussing how much of a klutz you were." He teased.

"Fakir!" Rue scolded. 

Ahiru was about to reply with a well-aimed barb of her own when Madam Cat strolled out of the main building and clapped her paws together for silence. 

"Alright, everyone." She began. "This is our first outing of the new term, so I want you all on your best behavior. Remember that the manner in which you conduct yourselves is a reflection on the school and, as you teacher, a reflection on me as well. So-" a dark and menacing aura surrounded the feline ballet instructor –"if you do anything to embarrass me to day **I SHALL have my ex-husband marry you**! Except for the boys in the literary class." She added as an after thought. "They only reflect poorly on the school."

He speech complete she lead the group in a mass exodus from the Academy wall and out into the city beyond.

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Autor, not being in either the Literary or Ballet classes was not permitted to attend the field trip and spent the morning and subsequent day in the library writing a rather boring essay comparing the ballet _Coppelia_ to the short story off of which it was based: _"Der Sandman" _by E. T. A. Hoffman. And so his part shall not be recounted to you in this fiction. Should you wish to read of Autor's boring exploits in the library please send your request to this e-mail: 

fakeoldeman thebookmen .org

Or you may contact us at (xxx) 555-1234

Thank You

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Madam Cat's ex-husband was kind and obliging enough to meet them at the main entrance of the Kinkon Ballet Theater. The moment he stepped into view her fur stood on end and her elegant tail puffed out to over twice its size. But she was determined not to make a spectacle of herself and thus greeted him politely. 

Like wise, the moment he stepped into view Ahiru, Fakir and Rue all let out identical gasps.

Neko-sensei! Mr. Cat!

Madam Cat's ex-husband was none other than their first ballet instructor from the first story of the Prince and the Raven. Well, it made since. After all, was she not threatening them with marriage to him, the same way he himself used to threaten?

"If you would all follow me." Said the former ferry feline mentor. "I shall show you to the seats that have been set aside for you." He led them through the great double doors of the theater and down the hall to the second tier balcony. "Not so close that you're sitting in the so called 'crotch seats' but not so far as to where can't see a thing." He explained. 

Neko-sensei stood to one side as the student's filed into their seats one by one. Once every one was seated he made one final statement. "And, should any of you talk or in any way disturb the performance I shall have you **marry me!**" He raised his voice with such conviction, it so much more convincing than when Madam Cat said it. 

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The story was a simple one. The ballet chronicled the exploits of a Knight whom was charged with the task of protecting a Prince. In act one, however, the Knight fails in his duty and is left for dead. His replacement then tries to protect the noble Prince, whom apparently is a magnet for trouble, but fails over and over again. While the first Knight desperately tries to restore his honor and save his beloved Prince. Thus ends act one.

"Hey Fakir." Ahiru leaned over to him the moment the House lights were raised for the intermission. "Did you notice that the guy they got playing the Knight looks a lot like you?"

He did not meet her eye when he replied: "I hadn't noticed." He had.

"I think it's a little suspicious." Rue interjected her opinion into the conversation. "Not only did the lead dancer mirror our own Fakir, but that story was a blatant rip off of the Knight's role in the 'Prince and the Raven' story."

"Weird." Agreed our pink Princess.

Fakir remained silent. He was preoccupied thinking. _As a true Knight should be._ That had been the line he'd written about himself. Could he have inadvertently created another version of himself by accident? 

**Fin** for now…

Thanx to all for reading this. Sorry for it taking so long. My computer was busted for a while and then I had to actually get down to writing. That was the more time-consuming part… heh… heh… heh…


	15. Not Yet Dead Part 2

Disclaimer: Don't own Tutu… just the DVDs, but that's it

Disclaimer: Don't own Tutu… just the DVDs, but that's it. I swear!

Vignette Fourteen: Not Yet Dead (Part 2)

Fakir never got to see how the second half of the ballet turned out, just as intermission was ending OC-sensei, his classical literature teacher rushed up to him in panic.

"Mr.Fakir," He breathed. "I need you to come with me immediately. There has been an incident at your home."

His mind automatically jumped to Retzel, round with child. "What happened?"

"Apparently, a thief broke into your godfather's forge and stole something. Your godfather was injured in the incident."

Fakir was of course out the door and half way down the street at the word "injured". 'Karon…' He thought. 'Please be okay.'

Karon, as it turned out was fine. Fakir returned home to find him sitting on the porch waiting, while a concerned Retzel dabbed at what appeared to be a cut running from the left temple of his forehead to just behind his ear.

Hanz came rushing up to meet him. "A thief broke into you godfather's forge this morning after you left for school!" He seemed flustered and breathless.

"I know." Fakir stated. "OC-sensei told me. Why'd they break in? What was taken? Is Karon okay?"

"He was knocked out before he got a good look at his attacker but he's fine now." Hanz placed a comforting hand on the boy's shoulder. "Retzle found him lying on the floor when she went to invite him to breakfast."

Karon looked up when Fakir reached him. "Are you okay, boy?" He asked, concern overflowing through his eyes as Retzel secured a bandage over his wound.

"Am _I _okay?" Fakir questioned, flabbergasted. "Are _you _okay? What happened? Who did this to you and why?"

"I thought somebody might be after you because of what was taken." Stated the old blacksmith. "Retzel, stop fussing. I'm not going to drop dead from this little scratch."

She "humfed" and walked over to stand next to her husband, muttering about "stupid male pride" or something.

"After me?" Fakir blinked in confusion. "Why? What would anyone have against me? What was taken?"

Karon gazed unblinkingly into Fakir's eyes and said in a flat tone. "The Lohengrin Sword."

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"I hope everything's okay at Fakir's house." Stated a concerned Ahiru. "I have a bad feeling…"

"I'm sure it's nothing serious." Rue assured her as they continued on their way back to the girls' dorms.

"Ne, Rue-chan? What do you think was up with that dancer who looked like Fakir?" She laughed awkwardly. "Maybe he's Fakir's long lost twin brother or something… heh heh."

Rue cast a sideways smile at her companion. "Some how I don't see that being the case."

"Your probably right." He smile seemed to waver. "Ne, Rue-chan?"

"Yes?"

"Hoff-chan is really lonely, you know." She didn't meet Rue's eyes when she said this; she was in-fact, staring intently at the cobblestones of the street. "I can see it in his eyes and here it in his voice. He's a very lonely person."

Rue remained silent, digesting Ahiru's words.

"But it's not like when Mytho was always lonely." Continued the pink princess. "Back when the only feelings Mytho had were disappointment, loneliness and sorrow… Hoff-chan has a full range of emotions, he just doesn't let himself feel anything but anger, sadness and loneliness."

"He doesn't trust, either." Rue was also not looking at her friend. The stones paving the street seemed very interesting. "I think it's my fault, mine and Mytho's. We were his parents the people who were supposed to protect and nurture him and we… failed."

"Rue-chan…" Ahiru patted her friend reassuringly on the shoulder. "I'm sure you and Mytho did the best you could."

They had reached main gate to the dorms. "But Ahiru, you don't know… Mytho…"

"Ah, ladies." Her angsty monologue ended when Autor came running up. "Can I walk you home?"

"We're already here." Rue informed him irritably.

"Ah, well…" He ran a hand through his thick dark hair. "Yeah… um."

"Autor-san." Ahiru piped up. "You did a family tree on Fakir once, right? So you would know if he had a twin brother or not, right?"

Rue's face fell into the palm of her hand with an embarrassed 'thunk'.

"Well." He was suddenly very snobbish, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose so they reflected the light of the setting sun and effectively hid his eyes from view. "It's more accurate to say it was a family tree of Herr Drosslemyer, but yes I would know whether or not if Fakir had a twin brother."

"And does he?" Rue prompted anxious to satisfy Ahiru so they could go inside.

"No, he does not."

"Thank you." Rue ushered Ahiru through the gates and steered her toward the girls' building, while Autor headed for the boys'.

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"How was the show?"

Knight looked up to see his master sitting in the open window, casually holding what looked like a rod wrapped in clothe in his hand.

"I went well." Answered the obedient puppet. "I saw him in the audience; the one who stole my role and my Prince."

"Did you now…?" Hoffnung hopped down from the window. "I brought a gift for you, Knight." He held up the cloth-concealed object. "Well, not exactly a gift, since it did originally belong to you…"

The Knight took it curiously, his eyes widened as he slowly slid the material off the steely gray hilt of the Lohengrin Sword. "Oh… Thank you."

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Rue was rudely jolted from her sleep by a knocking at her dorm room door. Groggily she rolled out of bet to open the door and put and end to the offending noise.

"Rue-chan." Ahiru began almost as soon as it creaked on its hinges. "I think we should go talk to Fakir."

"Ahiru?" The dark princess asked sleepily.

"I have a bad feeling, like something terrible is going to happen to him…"

Rue suppressed the urge to say 'Are you sure it's not just that you want to see him?' and instead said: "Can't it wait until tomorrow."

"No." Ahiru stated firmly, her eyes narrowed with determination. Her hand closed over the shard of hope. "We need to speak to Fakir tonight, right now!"

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The house was asleep and the evening was quiet as Fakir slipped silently through the back door of Karon's forge. The old man had been treated for his wounds hours earlier and the family had sat down to discus why anyone would want an old sword like the Lohengrin. Fakir had remained tactfully silent during all of this, and now all had gone to bed and were peacefully floating on the sea of dreams, all accept him. He had so see the Book Men.

He tip toed lightly until he reached the lane, then broke out into a light jog. The Old Man would know what was going on. He would know why there was another _him_ walking around, why the Lohengrin Sword was stolen… he probably knew much more that he's told Fakir that first time.

So wrapped up in his own thoughts was Fakir that he failed to notice a dark figure silhouetted against the moon watching his every move. "Ah… Imposter…" It muttered. "The time for retribution is now!"

Fakir gasped as a cloaked figure jumped down in front of him, blocking his path. "Who are you?"

The figure turned to face Fakir, reveling an iron mask from beneath the hood of his cloak. The same iron mask Fakir himself had worn in episode 7 when he'd tried to pierce Mytho's heart.

"What business have you with me?" He pressed when the figure gave no response.

"Imposter." The figure finally spoke, drawing a sword from within the folds of his cloak. The blade shone in the moonlight and Fakir saw it was the Lohengrin Sword.

"It was you!" Fakir pulled his trusty letter opener from his pocket, the same letter opener with which he used to stab himself (why he kept this in his pocket only the plot whole knows). "You hurt Karon, you stole the sword!"

He lunged at the mysterious stranger with his severely in-adequate letter opener, only to stumble and trip, as his dull blade contacted nothing but air.

"Your moves are to predictable, Imposter." Stated the cloaked stranger whom had dodged Fakir's attack effortlessly. "It's no wonder you failed to protect my Prince."

"What?" Fakir turned to face his opponent from his position on the street.

"FAKIR!" Ahiru's voice rang through the empty street like a church bell.

The above-mentioned Fakir turned his head just in time to see Ahiru and Rue running towards him before his pink princess was swept up in a cloud of shojou sparkles that solidified into a golden egg.

"What are you doing here?" He asked the ballerina super-hero that emerged.

"She… was… worried about… you." Panted an exhausted Rue, as she braced herself on her knees for support.

Princess Tutu gracefully glided over to the stranger. "I'm Princess Tutu, I dance to guide you heart." She informed him.

"Princess Tutu…" The figure sank to one knee and lifted his mask to kiss her hand, revealing a face that was identical to Fakir's in every respect. "I thank you for trying to restore my Prince's heart, Princess Tutu." He rose to his feet. "But I must ask you not to interfere with my business tonight." He turned to Fakir. "There has been a blight on my honor and I demand satisfaction!"

Fakir like-wise rose to his feet. "I see. So you're the other me, huh?" He held his letter opener as if it were a sword. "I guess it would have turned out this way sooner or latter."

"Ooh. Isn't this exiting?" A sadistically entertained voice asked. "True Knight vs. False Knight."

"Hoff-chan!" Rue looked up at her son whom had apparently been watching from the rooftops the whole time.

Rue gritted her teeth as she was swept up in a flurry of shoujo sparkles of her own that solidified into a silver egg.

"I can't let you keep doing this!" Queen Kraehe shouted up at him.

"You're welcome to try and stop me, Mother." Responded the rebellious Raven boy.

Kraehe bit the inside of her cheek as she glanced between Fakir and the Knight, and Hoffnung. Which would it be more productive to engage? The Knight, whom was threatening her writer or her son, the source of all the trouble?

"Knight-san." Princess Tutu leapt between the two mirrored fighter. "Why do you have Fakir so much?"

She took the Knight's left hand in her right and placed his other around her slim waist. Knight, taking the hint, lifted her up off the cobble stone street and twirled her around.

"He stole my mission from me." The Knight explained. "My purpose, my life… my Prince." He placed the pink Prima Donna back down.

"How did Fakir do that?" the pink princess pressed.

"He wrote a story…" He didn't actively engage Princess Tutu, but he was still dancing with her. "I felt it when I died; the power of another story pulling me in."

"What did I write?" Fakir shouted, anxious for an answer. So he HAD inadvertently created another self.

"What did Fakir write?" Princess Tutu asked.

"He became a hero and defeated the ravens that were plaguing his town… this town." Knight elaborated. "But he did it wrong. The ravens attacked his home but he couldn't do anything and his parents were killed and I… I was bound to him. The wounds from my death were painted on his flesh and he became a distorted version of me."

Princess Tutu gasped and looked to see how Fakir was taking this news. He was trembling slightly while staring fixedly at the scar on his hand, the scar he'd given himself when he tried to stop Drosslemyer from drowning Ahiru.

"I…" He muttered. "I can't write anything write."

Hoffnung laughed evilly. "Ha ha! Isn't this great? Watching you suffer is better than 'Air TV'!" (This was an anime that my Anime Club was showing at the time as Princess Tutu.)

"Hoff-chan, stop it!" Kraehe leapt to the rooftop and stood before her wicked son. "Don't you see? Your just perpetuating more suffering. I know it's hard; I had to live with the Raven's blood almost my entire life as well. But you have to fight it!"

"Fight it?" He echoed. "I embrace it. Raven is what I am and my Raven's blood makes me powerful. I should thank you, it's because of you and Father that I'm like this and not some weak simpering Princeling that needs a failure of a Knight to save him."

Knight luckily was still hypnotized by Princess Tutu and did not hear Hoffnung's last comment. "He stole my life and he stole my Prince from me!" Tears began sparkling in the corners of his eyes threatening to fall. "He stole my Prince and then failed to protect him! It's because of him… because of him that my Prince was taken by the Raven! It's his fault!"

Now the Knight truly was crying, the tears streaming from his eyes seemingly without end. "My Prince… my Prince." He muttered.

Princess Tutu ceased her dancing, unsure of what to do. "Knight-san…"

"My gosh…" Kraehe muttered. She fluttered down to the street to stand next to Tutu. "You were in love with him!"

"What?" Knight looked up at the Raven Queen. "No… I…I'm supposed to protect him… that's all! Just protect…"

"You wanted to protect the one you love." Kraehe took his hand in hers. "That's a feeling I understand. I also want to save Mytho. We all want to help him."

"No!" He pushed Kraehe away. "HE doesn't care about my Prince! If he cared he would have given his life instead of breaking the sword and letting the Raven into his heart!"

"Then it's also my fault." Tutu stated. "I returned the shard of love to Mytho. I thought it was the best thing for him, I didn't know it had been soaked in the Raven's blood."

Knight looked confused, glancing back and forth between Princess Tutu and Fakir. "No… it's his… fault."

"If Tutu is to blame, than so am I." Queen Kraehe joined. "It was I who stole the love shard and soaked it in the Raven's blood. If you're going to take your revenge on Fakir and Tutu, then you might as well include me in it as to."

Now Knight was thoroughly confused. "But you are…" He glanced inquisitively at Hoffnung. "My master told me not to harm you."

"Oh, Knight." The ebony Prince sighed. "Just finish that useless writer and get it over with."

"I wont let you!" Princess Tutu placed herself firmly between Knight and Fakir. "I wont let you hurt Fakir!"

"Ahiru." The writer in question placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder. "Its okay. I think I know how to handle this…" He faced the Knight with out fear. "I will release you."

The Knight too a sudden fearful step backwards. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

"I'm going to release you." Fakir repeated as he wrapped his arms around the Knight.

"Oi! Knight! What are you doing?" Hoffnung shouted. "Finish him!"

Fakir held Knight close to himself. "You don't have to linger any longer." He whispered so only the Knight could hear. "That story is over. Rest now, I'll tell you story for you. The good along with the evil… it will the readers who judge you accordingly." He placed a gentle hand over Knight's eyes. "The rest is silence."

A wooden puppet much like the ones Tutu had seen inside the story clattered to the ground at Fakir's feet. Lying on top of the puppet was a single black feather wrapped around a glowing red heart shard and the torn page of a book. Fakir knew that page well, he lifted the Knight's death scene from the ground and clutched it to his chest.

"That story is over." He said again. "I am not the Knight, I shall never waver about my writing again." He turned and smiled at Princess Tutu.

"NO!" Screeched the thwarted antagonist. "Why!? Why can't you die?"

A violet mist snaked its way up Hoffnung's body to form at his fingertips. He now held an intimidating, but familiar black sword in his hands.

"I'll just have to kill you myself! Your heart will taste so sweet!" He lunged for the pony-tailed writer.

"Don't!" It was Kraehe who came to his rescue, blocking the blow with a fan made of ebony feathers. "I can't let you kill him, Hoff-chan."

Unable to fight his mother, he released his sword and vanished.

Princess Tutu picked up the shard of resentment. "I should return this to Myhto but… but I don't know where he is."

Fakir walked over and wrapped his arms protectively around her. "We'll find him. Don't worry." The 'Don't worry' however, was aimed at Rue who looked like she was about to cry.

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"What are you doing here?" Mytho asked.

Autor pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose, hoping it would hide his face. "I realized she'd never love me." He didn't meet the captured King's eyes. "You're the only one she'll love."

"Raven's are sort of monogamous that way." Replied the former protagonist.

"I guess you're right." He picked up the scalpel Hoffnung had used to cut open Mytho's heart.

"What are you-"

SLASH

Mytho clattered to the cog wheel floor gasping. "Why would you…?" He glanced back up at the strings that Autor had just cut him free of. "I thought you and Hoffnung were in cahoots."

"I realized her happiness was more important than my own." His back was turned to Mytho now. "Now get out of here before Hoffnung gets back." He handed Mytho a small glass bottle. "Here are the shard he took before he found resentment. Now leave, before I change my mind."

Mytho took the shards and left.

**Fin** for now…

(I know it's been a while, but thank you for your patience. I've got allot of stuff going on with work and all. But thank you for your reviews.)


	16. Vignette 15

Disclaimer: Don't own Tutu, Princess

Disclaimer: Don't own Tutu, Princess. Not mine.

Vignette Fifteen:

Fakir placed the page from 'The Prince and the Raven' along with the Lohengrin Sword and the knight's mask in the same stone coffin from which he'd taken the Prince's sword in the previous epic.

"Are you sure you're alright?" Asked Ahiru as she watched Fakir push the heavy stone lid back in place. "The Knight had been a part of you for almost your whole life."

"That story is over." Fakir seemed to be saying this allot. "I'm no longer a Knight and never really was to begin with." He placed an affectionate hand on her shoulder. "I have to speak to the Book Men, why don't you go on back to the dorms."

"'Kay…" She turned too leaved, her back to him she said: "Fakir… I want you to stay out of trouble. When I thought the Knight was going to kill you… I was scared. I mean really scared. I don't want to louse you like…" she paused, thought, fidgeted. "…like Rue lost Mytho." She finished meekly and ran out before Fakir could process what she'd meant.

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"Where would Fakir be…?" The newly released King Mytho wandered confusedly through the streets of Kinkon Town.

It had been so long since he'd last been here. Since he'd battled the Raven in the town's main street. Since he'd danced a pas de deux with Rue in an abandoned building not far from the wall. Since he'd been to the Academy… The Academy, of course! If he couldn't find Fakir, he'd find the Academy and from there figure where Fakir could be. Finding a building was much easier than finding a person.

He turned down a side street that lead him in to a heavily wooded area.

"This looks familiar…" He muttered to no one. "I wonder if the park is near by…" _The park that I used to come to with Rue… Rue, I hope you're okay…_

He continued walking, the trees getting thicker with each step until he wasn't sure where he'd come from or where he was headed.

"I'm lost." He informed the surrounding shrubbery.

"What a pathetic wretch you are!"

Mytho glanced down at the bottle of his own heart shards in confusion and annoyance. "Excuse me?"

"You heard me." The offending Shard materialized as a red hued and slightly transparent version of Mytho himself. "YOU, my good self, are a pathetic wretch."

"Why would you say that?" Asked the momentarily mystified monarch.

"First of all…" Began the Shard. "All we, all YOU've done for the past week was hang around like dried meat. You never ONCE tried to escape! Secondly, now that you are free, instead of searching the town systematically, street-by-street, you just rushed off in the first direction that looked familiar to spite the fact that you haven't been here in YEARS! And have probably forgotten the lay of the land… And now we're lost!"

Another Shard materialized itself from the tiny glass bottle and placed a restraining hand on the first's shoulder.

"That's enough." He said. "We're never going to get anywhere if you keep scolding him like that."

"I'll talk to myself however I damn well please!" Replied the first.

The latter glared at the former as he prepared his come back. Mytho pinched the bridge of his nose, sensing an oncoming stress headache.

"I need to find Princess Tutu." He muttered. "Forget about Fakir."

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Hoffnung stood on the brass cogwheel platform inside the story and glared up at the silvery strings hanging limply from the darkness. Those strings were the ones that had previously restrained his father. Now they were empty. The other shards he had removed during his "surgery" were also gone; probably taken the same time Mytho had escaped.

"Danm." He muttered aloud.

Mytho couldn't have been able to escape on his own. He had to have had help… The ebony prince stormed from the clock in a mass of dark feathers.

"That treacherous fool!"

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Autor paced out side the door to the Book Men's secret headquarters: the public Library. He couldn't go back to the dorms, not now that he had betrayed Hoffnung by freeing Mytho. But he didn't exactly have anywhere else to go.

'_What am I going to do now?'_ He thought.

It was at that moment that Fakir came jogging lightly up the lane.

"Autor?" He stopped short. "What are you doing her?"

"I… uh…" He placed his hands in his pockets. "What are you doing her?"

"I need to speak to the Book Men about something. You?"

I'm here because I have no where else to go since I freed Mytho from the clutches of his evil Raven child of a son and was hopping the Book Men would forgive my trespass and take me in. "The same." He answered.

Fakir shrugged as if he had expected this answer and opened the door. "Well, come on then."

The inside of the Book Men's headquarters was musky and smelled of aging paper and dry flaking ink. It was pitch dark inside, the moons dim light streaming in through the open door way in which Fakir and Autor stood did nothing to illuminate their surroundings.

The two stumbled about in the darkness searching for a lamp to light when on was provided for them. The old style oil lamp was held in the hand of one of the cloaked figures of a Book Man whom had come to investigate the noise the boys were making.

"And what might this be, eh?" Asked the suspicious Book Man. "A pair of Drosslemyer's spawn, come to rob us."

"What?" Autor asked dumbstruck.

"I'm here to speak to you leader." Fakir's voice was business like, like he had no patience to waste on underlings and minions.

The Book Man glared at Fakir from beneath the hood of his cowl.

"This way." He said at last, leading the two boys down a dark corridor.

He stopped at the door to the same room Fakir had been shown before, the room that contained _his_ story: "The Prince of the Ravens".

"Wait here." Ordered the Book Man, closing the door behind him.

Fakir walked over to the book case and perused the titles until he found the one he was looking for: his story. Pulling the volume from the shelf, he rifled through the pages to find the last entry.

'_The Knight gazed upon the figure that was himself…' _He read. '_"That story is over." Said he. And the Knight new it was true… He had come face to face with himself… and he found peace._' Fakir breather a sigh of relief. The Knight was a peace, he could finally rest.

But wait. He didn't write that. He hadn't been writing anything when that happened. So how…? He flipped to the book's front cover. There. Right beneath his name was that of a co-writer. He looked up in shock.

"What is it?" Autor asked.

"Nothing." Fakir studied the name on the cover again. Yes. It was Autor. It was Autor whom had written about him and the Knight, and it was most likely Autor whom had… whom had brought Hoffnung out of the story and stated this tragedy.

"I thought you'd be back." The leader of the book men entered at that moment. "But why are you here?" He asked upon seeing Autor.

"I… uh… "

"He's with me." Fakir answered for him, his voice deadpan, still not taking his eyes from the cover of the book.

"I see." The Book Man leader said slowly. "What can I do for you, my boy?"

"I actually just learned all I needed to know." He replaced the book on the shelf. "We'll go now. Sorry for disturbing you all at such a late hour."

He grabbed Autor's arm and pulled him from the room, down the corridor, out the building. "You're coming with me." He said when they were outside.

"Where are we…?" A sudden and hard fist to his stomach cut his question short. He staggered backwards in the street. "Fakir! What are you on about?"

"THAT was for lying to us." He glared at the pianist from behind the curtain of his dark hair. "All that time we thought you were working with us to find Mytho, to stop Hoffnung. And you were the writer who brought him here in the FIRST PLACE!"

"Fakir, I can explain." He held his hands out in an attempt to placate the enraged writer.

"You explanation better be something like…" He paused. "Like, 'I didn't know what I was doing until it was done and then I couldn't take it back and I thought if I help you, you would do it for me'. Nothing short of that will let me forgive you."

"That's… that's exactly how it happened, Fakir. Exactly." He took a cautious step closer to Fakir and placed a hand on the boy's shoulder. "I wanted to write a story." He began; using the lie Fakir had already provided him with. "I wanted to write like you could, but I didn't have the power." That part t least was true. "Something came to me and said that he'd give me the power if I helped him, so I did. But… I made a horrible mistake, and because of that we were cursed with Hoffnung."

"How can I believe you knowing that you lied about your connection to Hoffnung?" Fakir crossed his arms over his chest, still skeptical.

"I can help you find Mytho." He answered.

"What?"

"He's here in the town." Autor elaborated. "Let me stay at your house tonight. Mytho's probably looking you as well, we could search the streets systematically: each person taking a few blocks until he's found."

Fakir silently regarded him for a moment. "You can stay at my house tonight and tonight ONLY. But I don't want you interfering with us again. Do you understand? I'm not inviting you over because of your offer, I want to keep an eye on you for a while."

"I understand." The cobblestones had once again become very interesting.

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With the morning came fog, thick and congested. It blanketed the town, making it hard to see no more than a few feet in front of you. It blotted out the sun and gave those walking to their jobs or to the Academy a feeling of foreboding.

Hoffnung gazed at the fog through the window of his dorm room. So thick was it that he couldn't even see the girls building on the other side of the courtyard. It was almost as if a sheet of gray fabric had been pulled over the window pains.

_The fool didn't return last night._ The ebony Prince brooded and he watched the thick cloud bank swirl and shift.

The clock chimed in the distance.

No matter. I can always get him in school. No one is safe from me…

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"Aw, man. Even the weather's depressed today." Complained our favorite pink Princess. "Hey, cheer up Rue-chan." She nudged her friend in the side. "We'll find Mytho soon. Then we can give him his heart back and he'll help Hoff-chan and save the day! Just like when you were taken by the Raven."

"But Hoffnung IS a Raven, Ahiru." Rue's spirits were as bleak as the weather as they made the short walk from the girls' dorm to school. "It is completely different than when I was swallowed by the Raven."

"We'll find a way." Ahiru insisted. "All we need is enough hope." She patted her heart shard necklace affectionately. "Oh, before I forget! Here."

She pulled a small drawstring pouch from her school bag and handed it to Rue. The latter took it with expressions of interest and confusion mixing on her face.

Loosening the string, she peered in to see and slight sliver of red glowing at the bottom of the bag. "This is…"

"Mytho's shard of Resentment." Ahiru finished. "I know it's not the nicest feeling, but I thought, since it was a piece of Mytho, I would bring you some comfort to have it."

She pulled the strings shut again. "Thank you, Ahiru."

"Sure thing." She gave one of those awkward smiles that only Ahiru could pull off.

It was then that the Ahiru's pendant began to glow. Rue lifted the pouch containing Resentment, thinking that it had set off the necklace. But then it too began to glow; it's blood-tinged light showing through the seams in the bag.

"There must be another heart shard near by." Ahiru explained.

"Let's go find it." It wasn't a suggestion.

"But school…" She had finally gotten back in to the normal ballet class and wanted to have at least ONE lesson before the fan fiction was over. But Mytho, his heart and stopping Hoffnung was more important at the moment and so she complied. "I think it's this way."

Rue followed her down a side street that led to a heavily wooded area.

**Fin** for now…

(A/N: I AM going to finish this! I am determined! I have put my other fan fiction on hold so that I could finish this. It's to long and needs to end. I will end it, I just don't want to cop-out.)

Thanks to:

ClumsyXjinkx: I'm glad you think so.

CamiCw: As promised –up-dated before June.

Jishinibaka-chan: Welcome back. I'm glad you're no longer grounded. I love how all your reviews are always so positive and energetic. And you review almost every chapter which is nice. Thank you.

James Birdsong: I'm happy you think it's beautiful, but I would hardly call it "divine".

(A/N2: Sorry I haven't been thanking you all recently. It's really very poor form on my part and there really is no excuse.)


	17. Thickens? The plot just congealed!

Vignette Sixteen:

WARNING: This chapter moves very fast!

Vignette Sixteen:

Autor sat quietly in his piano class, patiently waiting his turn to play for the teacher. He had come to school that morning with Fakir and was probably going to be tailed by Fakir all day once class was over.

He sighed. So much for his 'power'.

A knock at the classroom door jolted him from his thoughts. The student that was currently playing stopped and looked at the door as if he'd never seen such a thing before.

_Well, answer it, idiot._ Autor thought bitterly. _Don't just stare._

The teacher placed his grade book on the desk and walked over to the door.

"May I help you?" He asked upon opening the it.

Autor instantly froze. Hoffnung stood in the doorway.

"One of your students has been called to the main office." Autor shivered, why did he get the feeling that _he _was the student that was called out. "I'm to take Autor with me right away."

_Crap!_

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Between the chill of the German night air and the constant bickering of his heart(s) Mytho had gotten no sleep. He had continued to wander the woods until the fog had made it near impossible to see through the thick foliage of the trees. Exhausted he slumped down at the base of a wide tree.

"Don't stop now!" Commanded one of his shards. "If you fall asleep in this God forsaken weather you'll catch pneumonia and die! And us with you." He indicated himself and the other shards present.

"I say we should pick a direction." A second shard suggested. "One direction and stick with it. We'll either end up back in town or smack into the wall. If we get back to town, then we can find Fakir. If we run into the wall we-"

"We'll get a nose bleed." Finished a third shard snidely.

"We could fallow the wall back to town." The former corrected.

"All of you!" Mytho snarled from his seat at the tree's foot. "Will you just give me five minuets of SILENCE!?"

The three bickering shards regarded their host coolly.

"They were just trying to help." A fourth materialized. "You didn't have to yell at them so severally."

Mytho glared at the piece of his heart that dared talk back to him. His eyes flashed lavender momentarily as he spoke. "You presume to instruct ME in how I address MYSELF?"

The hapless shard shrunk away from the piercing gaze and vanished back into the bottle as did the other three. Inside the bottle the fifth shard which had not spoken the entire time chided them for their foolishness, but Mytho heard none of this so it's not would recounting. He leaned back against the tree trunk and fell asleep.

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"I think it's this way." Ahiru pointed down a tiny path obscured by thick underbrush. She held her Hope necklace out in front of her as if she were dousing. It's soft glow cutting through the fog far better than the sun was managing.

"If you're sure." Was Rue's only response.

The two girls followed the glowing jewel down the path and past a wide tree; the gem glowed majestically until they had past right by.

"Ah! It's dimming!" Exclaimed the confused campaigner. "We must have past it!"

"Well, we can't see anything in this fog." Rue commented mildly. "Let's try backtracking."

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A rustle in the bushes behind his tree, his resting place stirred him from his nap. Unable to see what had disturbed him through the fog, Mytho felt it wise to relocate to a less vulnerable position. Thus leaving his place by the tree and continuing down a different path.

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Fakir stalked the Academy halls nervously; he was worried. Neither Ahiru nor Rue had come to school today. If it had been just Ahiru or just Rue it wouldn't have bothered him as much, he could have easily explained it away as "female problems". But having both Princess Tutu and Queen Kraehe absent was reason to worry.

He turned a corner just as the music students; specifically the piano students were leaving their room. If he didn't know where Ahiru or Rue were, he could at least keep track of Autor, the traitor.

Fakir leaned against the doorframe and watched the young musicians file out of the class. The moment Autor stepped out he would grab him before the pompous fop could get away.

The steam of students slowed to a trickle then stopped. The room was empty save for the teacher and Autor had not come out.

"Excuse me." Fakir stuck his head in the classroom to address the teacher. "Do you know where Autor is?"

"Oh, Yes." The teacher looked up from his desk. "He was called out of class early for something urgent."

"Chikusho!" Fakir cursed in Japanese as he stormed back out of the class and down the hall. No one bothered to mention to him that he was German and shouldn't know Japanese let alone Japanese swore words.

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Ahiru and Rue came back to the same tree they had passed minuets before.

"It's not glowing as brightly anymore." Ahiru stated glumly. "I wonder what's wrong."

"Maybe the shard's moving." Suggested Rue.

"Okay…" Ahiru held her necklace out at arms length in front of her and turned in a slow circle.

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Mytho wandered the in the fog until his nose collided with something hard and wall-like.

"See?" Shard number three materialized. "I told them we'd get a bloody nose, but did they listen to me? No-o."

Mytho fixed his heart with an icy glare.

The shard shrunk away from the piercing gaze. "Shutting up now."

"This isn't the wall." Mytho said more to himself than to…_ himselves._ He followed the thing he'd collided with until he reached an end. "It's a house! We're… I'm back in town!" He exclaimed happily.

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Autor followed Hoffnung out to the gazebo behind the school. Each step filled him with a stronger sense of dread.

"Are you going to kill me?" He asked suddenly.

Hoffnung turned to smirk at him. "Maybe. That all depends on you."

This did nothing to calm Autor's nerves. He stopped in his tracks and gazed downward at the ground. "Nothing seems to be going right." He muttered.

"That IS the nature of a tragedy." The feathered Prince stated flatly. "Now, where is my father?"

Autor continued avoiding his eyes. "I… I don't know."

"You don't know."

"I cut him down and told him to get out." The passive pianist elaborated. "I turned my back to him so that I wouldn't see him leave. I don't know where he went or where he is now."

"I see…" In less than the blink of an eye the Raven Prince had pinned Autor to one of the gazebo pillars by a hand to the throat. "Then I have no further use for you."

He tore open Autor's jacket and the shirt underneath with his eggplant purple fingernails. He trailed a loan finger over the bare skin of musician's chest. It was a gentle almost tender gesture but it left Autor's flesh burring as if a hot poker had branded him.

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Mytho continued in the direction he'd been traveling before colliding with the building wall. He would send one of his heart shards ahead to make sure there wasn't anything obstructing his path as he slowly made his way to the Academy. The fog made it so dame impossible to see!

The surrounding cloudbank was illuminated by the red glow of one of his returning shards.

"We're almost at the school!" It exclaimed happily. "There's a path that leads to the woodsy area behind the school. You know, where the gazebo where Fakir tried to pierce us is? That area!"

"Great." A landmark! Oh, gracious goodness, a landmark! Something he could use to navigate his way back to Fakir!

And then he heard the scream.

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Fakir was searching all the out-of-the-way places in the school for Autor_. Where could he be? Call out of class my backside!_

Just as he was rounding a corner a horrible scream pierced his ears.

_What was that?_ He rushed off to find out.

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Rue and Ahiru were following the glow of the shard of hope when they heard the scream.

"What was that, Rue-chan?" Ahiru looked at her companion, concerned.

"I don't know." She replied. "But it came from the same direction that the Hope is leading us. It can't be good."

The two quickened their pace.

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"WAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

Hoffnung froze when that awful bloodcurdling scream pierced his perfect Princely ears. Half way between a screech of surprise and a squeal of girly delight, it offended his senses so much so that he had to turn and find the source of the offending sound.

Two girls stood in the fog, just barely inside his range of vision. One was looking rather embarrassed and trying without success to pull the other away. The other seemed purely over joyed to stay and witness what ever she assumed Hoffnung was about to do to Autor.

"Come on, Lilie!" She tried again to pull the blond away. "We're sorry. We didn't mean to disturb your rendezvous."

"Tee hee hee." It was less a 'tee hee' and more a cackle. "I had no idea that the best dancer in the school and the best musician in school were a couple! Oh, please, Pike, can't I stay and watch?"

"NO!" All parties involved shouted simultaneously.

"C'mon!" Pike pulled extra hard and dragged Lilie after her into the obscurity of the fog.

Autor breather a sigh of relief and sank to his knees. Had he really just been saved by a shonnen-ai/yaoi fan girl? Honestly, what were the chances?

Hoffnung yanking him back to his feet cut his relief short.

"Don't worry." It wasn't a comforting statement. "This little moment of embarrassment will be short lived. As you will be."

The hand was back on his chest, this time the eggplant purple nails were digging into his skin. Autor cried out in pain.

"Autor!" A voice from the fog.

"Fakir!" He shouted back.

"Grr! Another nuisance!" The wicked Prince growled.

At that moment, Mytho emerged from the fog in the opposite direction.

"Hoff-chan!"

"Father!"

"Mytho!" Both Fakir and Autor said this.

"Fakir!" This was Mytho.

And then the Princesses appeared.

"Rue!" Mytho gasped his wife's name.

"Mytho!" She ran to embrace her husband.

"Mother!"

"Hoff-chan!" This was Ahiru.

"Ahiru!" Fakir rushed to her side.

"Fakir!"

"Oh my gosh! We MUST stop saying each others' names!" Hoffnung all but shouted.

Mytho passed the bottle containing the five heart shards he'd been caring to Rue. "Will you hold these for me?"

"Uh sure."

"Ah, the heart shards." In an instant Ahiru had transformed in to Princess Tutu. "I'll return them to you."

"No." Mytho held up a hand to stop her. "If I'm going to save my son I need them out of me for the moment."

"Huh?" The pink Princess blinked in confusion.

The five shards materialized in their human forms.

"Don't worry. He has a plan." One informed her.

"After all." Another began. "All he ever did while we were strung up like that was think."

"Hey I know you!" Ahiru smiled. "You're the five shards that were sealing the gates to the city! You're the shards that seal the Raven!"

Hoffnung, whom had remained silent during all this laughed mirthlessly.

"Why do I get the feeling that that's a bad thing?" Fakir asked no one in particular.

"Quiet, all of you." Mytho ordered. He glared at his son standing in the gazebo. "I will save you from yourself, Hoffnung. One way or another."

Mytho struck a dramatic ballet pose and his clothing melted away in a swirl of black feathers. The wind swirled and shifted the fog, momentarily obscuring Myhto from view. When he could be seen again, they all gasped.

It was not King Mytho that was standing there, neither was it Prince Mytho or Hearless Mytho. No. The one whom stood in the place of their hero was none other than Raven Mytho!

**Fin **for now…

(A/N: I finished the last part of this chapter between 2:30 and 3:00 am. So I'm sorry if it confuses you.)

Thanx:

Jishinibaka-chan: You were half right. The shards were reacting to the five that Mytho was carrying.

James Birdsong: Yes. Yes, I can say my story is cool. I just don't think it's "divine". But it is very cool.

Camicw: Wow… my fan fiction an anime… you have given me the best complement I have ever received on my writing. Thank you so much.


	18. Vignette 17

Vignette Seventeen:

Vignette Seventeen:

It was not King Mytho that was standing there, neither was it Prince Mytho or Hearless Mytho. No. The one whom stood in the place of their hero was none other than Raven Mytho!

All those gathered simply gawked at the re-appearance of the former villain. All except Hoffnung, who laughed mirthlessly.

"You really think you can stop me?" He teased. "All you really did was just change your clothes! 'Oh no! He's wearing all black! Ah!'" He laughed again.

"Joke if you wish." Raven Mytho was the picture of calm composure.

"Enough." His eyes fell on our favorite ballerina superhero. "Princess Tutu, return those shards to him right now so that I can finally feast on his heart." He ordered.

"Don't do it, Ahiru!" Rue placed a restraining hand on her friend's shoulder.

"I'm not." The pink Princess soothed.

"Enough of this." Mytho placed himself between Hoffnung and the assembled entourage. "Kneel before your King and receive your punishment."

"No." The ebony feathered Prince summoned his dark sword. "You'll have to beat me into submission."

"If need be." The Raven King summoned the two white swans that formed his sword. As the blade formed in his hand it shifted and contorted, the two swans that formed the hilt twisting into cruel looking crows.

Ahiru gasped. "Mytho's sword just…"

"I know, I saw." Fakir put an arm around her shoulders. "We just have to see how this plays out."

"Mytho! Don't hurt Hoff-chan!" Rue called to her husband.

Autor slunk over to stand by Fakir, clutching the torn remnants of his shirt and jacket close to his chest.

"I wanna stand over here by you." He said. "Where it's safer."

The others paid him no mind. Their full attention was focused on the dark combatants before them.

The dark swords clashed with an epic clang. Sparks flew from the crossed blades, a physical manifestation of the fire of their conviction.

"You can't beat me, Hoff-chan." Mytho informed his rebellious son.

"I'm younger than you!" Countered the dark Prince. "I'm stronger than you!"

The monarch's only response was an exasperated sigh.

Their blades met again with another ear piercing clang ringing through the thick fog. The two pulled away and charged again, hoping to inflict some small amount of damage first.

Hoffnung swung low, hopping to cut Mytho at the thigh. The white haired Raven King saw it coming and blocked accordingly then swung an attack of his own at the boy's shoulder that was likewise blocked.

"Stop it!" Rue shouted from the sidelines. "Don't hurt each other!"

The two ignored her please, their fight taking them farther and farther away from the assembled chorus and deeper into the fog. They didn't notice this, however, and disappeared behind the ethereal barrier of the cloud back.

"Ack! They disappeared!" Princess Tutu exclaimed.

_Good riddance. _Autor would never say that out loud, but he thought it with all his heart at that moment. He wanted to comfort Rue but she ran up to where her husband and son had disappeared before he had the chance.

"We have to follow them!" She stated.

"Of course, Rue-chan!" Princess Tutu nanced over to her friend.

"Right." Fakir agreed. He grabbed Autor and pulled him along with the rest of the group. "You're coming to. I've got some things to ask you."

The quartet left in pursuit of the duo.

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A few minuets into their jog Autor stopped them.

"Hold on. Fakir, where's your ledger?"

The writer looked down at his empty hands, then back up at the musician.

"You're coming with me." He grabbed onto the torn tatters of Autor's shirt. "I'm not letting you out of my sight for a second."

He dragged the boy away, leaving the Princess and Queen to follow the battling Ravens alone.

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The above-mentioned Ravens battled furiously in the thick of the trees. Neither would give in to the other and they were evenly matched. It seemed like this fic would never end! (Moaned the author as she wondered why she'd even started writing in the first place.)

Then Mytho turned the tables.

Summoning crow-costumed minions from the very mist that surrounded them, he boxed Hoffnung in.

"What are you doing, you fools!?" The ebony prince wailed. "I am your Prince! You can't do this to me!"

"And I am their king." Mytho stated flatly. "And I say they can and will."

Hoffnung's sword was forced from his hand. The crow-costumed minions held his arms and forced him to kneel before the King.

It was then that the women arrived.

"Mytho! Hoff-chan!" They let out twin exclamations.

"Ah, Princess Tutu." The King of the Raven's greeted her, ignoring his wife's presents for the moment. "Just the woman I wanted to see."

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Fakir, ledger with quill and ink in hand, practically flew back to where he'd last parted with Princess Tutu and Rue. Autor half heartedly trailed behind him.

The writer paused to get his bearings, and then turned at the faint sound of voices.

"Ah, Princess Tutu. Just the woman I wanted to see."

He ran off in the direction of Mytho's voice.

"There's something I need you for."

Fakir arrived just in time to see Raven Mytho, with Hoffnung on his knees behind him, lift his sword and slash across Princess Tutu's chest with one, single long stroke.

**Fin** for now…

(A/N: Next chapter will be the last. I promis!)

Thanx:

(Instead of thanks I'm going to give an apology. I'm sorry for taking so long to update after I promised to finish this story. I have recently become obsessed with that new Kung Fu Panda movie and found myself writing a fan fiction for it instead of Tutu.

And to Jishinibaka-chan the reason why there isn't allot of fluff in my story is that I'm terrible at writing fluff. For that, to, I am sorry.)


	19. Finale

Disclaimer: I don't own Princess Tutu or its related characters. All is the property of Ito Ikuko, Sato Junnichi and the good people of Studio Gansis. I'm just borrowing them for some non-profit entertainment.

(A/N: Would you believe that its been so long that I actually thought I had completed this fiction? I apologize for the delay of this final chapter. I do not ask you to forgive me.)

Final Chapter:

Fakir found that he couldn't breath. He stood frozen behind Princess Tutu, shocked in to stupidity by his abject horror at what Mytho had just done. He couldn't have! He couldn't have really just slashed the pink princess' throat. It just couldn't be true, he had seen wrong. He _must_ have seen wrong.

Princess Tutu stood in stunned silence. One elegant hand drifted upwards to daintily prod at her bare flesh just below her collar bone. It was little more than a cat-scratch.

"Why...?" Her question was cut off in a gasp when she realized what he'd done. "Hope!" she said, "You cut the shard of Hope in half!"

Fakir was suddenly sick with relief. She was alive, Princess Tutu was alive, _Ahiru_ was alive! He let out the breath he'd been holding in before his mind processed her words. "Why'd you cut the shard?"

"Mytho...?" Rue ventured uncertainly, but she was cut off when the Raven King spoke.

"Fakir, if you would begin writing now, please."

The writer stood motionless for a moment or two longer before catching up to the situation and remembering his purpose in being there was. He gripped his ledger and quill, sat down in the grass, placed his pen to to page and began to write.

The Raven King gracefully knelt down before Princess Tutu and picked up the severed half of Hope.

"For the longest time..." He began, not speaking to anyone in particular. "... I didn't know how to help my son. I didn't know what to make of him. Rue and I had not been Ravens originally, for us it was a curse. But Hoff... Hoffnung was born a Raven; its what he has always been. For my son the curse is humanity." Mytho turned to face his afore mentioned son. The boy struggled all the more furiously against those that restrained him, but it did no good. "I cannot break the curse that is on you, Hoffnung, because you are not cursed." The white haired Raven explained.

"Then let me go!" The boy whined.

All the while Rue, Princess Tutu, and Autor looked on, transfixed by the scene that was playing out before them. A scene being dutifully narrated by Fakir.

"All those times you tried to steal my heart I never thought it was really you. I thought it was the Raven controlling you. But now I realize that you honestly do need my heart, just not _all_ of my heart."

This last statement earned confused looks from all those gathered save Fakir. The author smiled cunningly at his page and dipped his pen in the inkwell before continuing...

Mytho held the severed half of Hope out to his still restrained son. "This is the only part of my heart that you need, Hoff-chan."

Understanding seemed to dawn on everyone at that point. Hope was a light that burned in the chest, it was the thing that kept a person going even when things seemed their worst. It was the feeling tat had saved everyone from the Raven before and it was the feeling that would now save the Raven from himself.

"Princess Tutu, if you would do the honors."

"Yes." She crossed the distance between herself and Hoffnung. Mytho handed her the heart fragment and she clutched in both hands, feeling its warmth and light. In all honestly, Princess Tutu wasn't sure what was going to happen at this point. When she was returning shards before it had always been to their original heart, to Mytho, to where they belonged. She had never intentionally placed a shard inside a person whom it did not belong in.

Tutu knelt before Hoffnung whom struggled even more furiously to escape, but the crow clad minions held him fast and he could neither flee nor fight.

"I give you your father's Hope." The pink princess said and pressed her hands flat to the Raven Prince's chest. The shard did not enter him willingly but after a prolonged pause and some silent praying, Princess Tutu felt the shard begin to sink into his flesh, passing through ribcage and lungs to bond with the heart.

Hoffnung groaned at the foreign heart's invasion of his own, his teeth set and bared in a silent snarl. And then, as suddenly as that, it was over. The minions that held him let go before vanishing in puffs of purple sparkles and the Raven Prince fell to the ground unconscious.

"Hoff-chan!" Rue rushed to her fallen son's side.

"He's fine." Mytho assured her. He then turned to Princess Tutu. "I'd like the rest of my heart back now, please."

"Of course." The five shards who sealed the Raven within Mytho gathered around Princess Tutu, combining into one and passing back into their host as they had in the previous story. Mytho reverted from Raven King back into the disheveled and tattered version of himself that had escaped from Hoffnung's lair. The pink princess then reached up to unclasp the Shard of Hope from her neck.

Vaguely she wondered if she would have trouble getting it off again or if the shard and her own feelings would cooperate this time. It seemed that they would because the clasp of the chain gave effortlessly at her touch. She held the pendant in her hand and stepped closer to Mytho.

"WAIT!"

Everyone paused and turned to face the one who had shouted. Fakir now stood, his pen and ledger on the ground beside his feet, the story paused before Tutu could return the final shard to Mytho.

"You can't return the last shard to Mytho." He said, eyes focused on Tutu.

"Why not?" The question was asked by the pink princess, but its sentiment was echoed by all those gathered.

"Because...because I..." Fakir clenched one of his hands in the other, his thumb running over the scar in his palm over and over again. "If you give Mytho his Shard of Hope back you'll turn back into a duck and... and I don't want that. I don't want to louse you a second time, Tutu... no, _Ahiru_! I don't want to louse you, Ahiru!"

Everyone stood in shocked silence at Fakir's confession. All eyes turned to the pink princess to hear her response to this statement which was all but a confession of love. Before Princess Tutu had the chance to respond, however, the silence was broken by Mytho's confused query.

"'Ahiru'?" He blinked, momentarily forgetting that his friend and former roommate had just asked him to give up his Hope. "As in our former school friend Ahiru? She's Princess Tutu? But I thought Princess Tutu was a duck?"

Once again, all eyes turned back to Princess Tutu. She had forgotten that while the Prince, not the King, had learned at the end of the tale that Princess Tutu had been a duck he had never learned that that same duck had also been his schoolmate Ahiru. She supposed it would be somewhat confusing for him to lear that she was duck, girl and ballerina superhero all rolled into one.

"I am a duck." The pink princess confessed. "Its your Shard of Hope that allows me to become Princess Tutu that also allows me to become just a normal girl and go to school with you and Rue and Fakir. I... I loved you to, Mytho, before I ever learned that you really were a Prince I loved you and I wanted to dance with you. That was _my_ Hope and your heart shared allowed me to do that. A duck is what I am, but Ahiru is who I am."

"I... see..." The ivory haired King said slowly. "And do you still love me?"

"I... I'm not sure." The princess was honest. "I think I was really more in love with the _idea_ of you rather than you yourself. You didn't have any of you heart back then and so didn't really have much of a personality to fall for. I think I liked the image of you that I had developed in my head and projected on to you as the 'real you'. I was in love with a fantasy."

Mytho nodded in understanding. "A thing need not be real for it to give a person Hope. Now, since you no longer care for me in that way, what is your Hope, Tutu no, Ahiru?"

"My new hope?" Her eyes sparkled with possibilities and she glanced around those gathered. At Rue whom knelt with her arms around her sleeping son. At Mytho who stood patiently awaiting an answer from her. At Autor whom had been watching silently unable to do anything to either help or hinder either side, he still stood watching. And finally she looked to Fakir, his eyes expectant, hopeful and longing. "I want to be able to stay a girl." She confessed. "I want to go to school with my friends, I want to live in the dorms, I... I liked being a girl. I know its not what I truly am, its not my true self. I was born a duck and I should be content to stay a duck but... but that's not what I really want. I want to be human."

"How strongly do you want that?" Mytho asked.

"Very strongly." Tutu admitted gripping the Shard of Hope more tightly. "But if I've learned nothing from the last story its that selfishness only breeds tragedy. I want to stay human, but I won't if its at the expense of another, especially not a friend. I'll return your Shard of Hope now."

"Ahiru! Wait!" Fakir shouted.

"Fakir," Tutu turned to glare at him, here eyes burning with passion and conviction. "If you truly love me you won't be selfish. You'll take up your pen and write a happy ending for this story and not an ending that makes just _you_ happy at the expense of our friends."

Fakir didn't want to. In that moment, he wanted nothing more than to be a selfish bastard and write a selfish ending for the story and make himself happy. But that wouldn't make Ahiru happy and if Ahiru weren't happy then he wouldn't be either. He sat down and began to write...

Princess Tutu extended her hands and the pendant clutched within them to Mytho. "I give you back your wings, the wing you need to return to yourself with."

The shard drifted back within Mytho and he shone with the splendor of a king undimmed by the twice breaking and reforming of his heart. His ripped and bloodied clothes melted away to be replaced by newer, finer garments of blue and gold and adorned with swan feathers along the collar and hem. He looked every bit as noble and regal as he did the day he and Rue had defeated the Raven.

And Princess Tutu... reverted back into a duck.

Fakir grit his teeth and paused in his writing. What was the point? What was the point of going through all this again if Ahiru still couldn't get her happy ending? What was the point of him having this power if he couldn't use it to give the person he cared about the one thing she wanted? What was the point if_ he_ couldn't get what _he_ wanted? What a useless power the Power of Stories is. No wonder Drosslmeyer went insane and became obsessed with tragedy.

"Your forgetting something crucial, Fakir." Mytho said upon seeing his friend and former roommate's sullen face. "You're not the only one with the Author's Gift anymore. Terrible things can happen when an Author writes themselves into their stories, that's why you need someone else to write your happy ending for you."

"What?" The green haired writer looked up, perplexed.

Mytho merely raised his chin in the general direction of when Autor stood. He had been keeping out of the way through the whole scene with Hoffnung, hoping to go unnoticed or that the others would forget that he was there. He didn't want Rue to know that he was the one who caused this new story to happen and he feared retribution from both Fakir and Mytho. When the white haired King's gaze fell on him the poor musician all but fainted.

"M-me...?" He stuttered.

"You started all this." Mytho reminded him. "I think its only fitting that you finish it and give this story a happy ending for everyone. Fakir can't be expected to fix every run-away story by every fic writer with a puffed-up idea of their abilities."

Autor sputtered at that but he understood. He had begun this mess the moment he began playing with Writing to spite his immature and ill-gotten powers. He had lost control of the story because his purpose in beginning it was to have Rue fall in love with him. He had inserted himself as a character and thus forfeited the right to Write it. He had taken on the role of 'evil-lacky' just as Fakir had taken on the role of 'knight' in the previous story. But he had given up that roll and now it was time for him to make amends and finish what he had begun, giving up his possibility of a happy ending for the sake of everyone else's.

"I understand." He said. "Fakir, may I borrow your ledger for a moment?"

"Uh... yeah..." He agreed, unsure of what exactly was going on. Fakir passed his papers, quill and ink to Autor whom sat down on the grass next to his cousin. "What's going on, exactly?"

"You've earned your happy ending." Mytho assured him.

Fakir wasn't quite sure what they were going to do but he had already handed Autor his ledger and pen, there really wasn't much he could do. He stepped towards Mytho but paused to pick up the duck that was Ahiru instead. He hugged the little yellow bird gently but said nothing.

"And now," Mytho said, "I'm going to show you why my heart is so coveted by the Ravens. For you see, my heart is a heart that loves all and next to Hope, Love is among the most powerful forces in this world." He smiled warmly as Rue then turned back to Ahiru and Fakir. "Rue's love for me gave my heart the strength to fight the Raven's blood that had corrupted me. My love for Rue gave me the power to save her and together our love pierced the Raven's heart. My heart is a conduit for power. I can take the power of your love, Fakir, and use it to achieve an end. In short: my heart can grant wishes."

Silence followed this statement.

When no one else spoke, Mytho continued. "Ahiru is a bird, a duck who loves being human. And you, you love the human girl that Ahiru is."

"I love Ahiru." Fakir corrected. "Regardless of her form Ahiru is Ahiru and its Ahiru I love, not just the human body she had when I met her. But... but if would be nice if we were both the same species."

The white haired king nodded. Fakir's love was true and that made it powerful. Ahiru's love of a human life was strong. Between the two of them they have enough Love to grant their one wish. Mytho reached out a hand and placed his palm flat over Fakir's chest, over his heart. The writer temporarily turned character shifted the duck in his arms to give his former roommate better access for whatever it was he was going to do but he did not let her go. He held her in one arm almost possessively. Fakir was unsure what Mytho was going to do exactly, but whatever it was he didn't want to risk lousing her in a 'magical backlash' or something. He suddenly found that he didn't like being a character anymore. He had grown accustomed to knowing what was going to happen before it happened or _deciding _on what would happen before it happened. His time as an Author had spoiled him he decided.

Mytho stood silent with his hand over Fakir's heart, counting beats. Slowly, the thumping of his heart began to resemble the ticking of a clock. Mytho slowly let the power of his complete and whole heart flow into Fakir, not to much and not to quickly, he didn't want to overwhelm him. Just enough to fore-fill the wish in his heart. When Mytho was sure he had given enough power to fore-fill its purpose he lowered his arm and stepped back. He looked expectantly at Fakir, as if the dark haired Writer should know what to do next. All he did, however, was stare blankly back at his friend in disappointed confusion.

"I don't think it worked." He said.

Mytho huffed. "Honestly, Fakir, I can't do everything. You still have to meet me half way." When his friend still continued to stare blankly at him Mytho became frustrated and said, "Kiss you idiot, kiss. You should know the standard fairy tale answer to these things: True Love's Kiss. Now get on with it."

Ahiru and Fakir looked at each other uneasily. Then, deciding that neither of them had anything to louse and everything to gain, Fakir pressed his lips to the tip of Ahiru's orange duckbill. Somewhere off in the distance the deep nell of a bell was heard and the little yellow duck was swept up in a cloud of pink and gold sparkles. Fakir kept his grip on her firm even as her form began to shift within his grasp and when he opened his eyes it was no bird gazing back at him but a girl, Ahiru.

...

"So what happens now?"

They had all gathered back at the highest room of the town's clock tower. Mytho and Rue with a now conscious and disgruntled looking Hoffnung between them. For the first time the boy looked like just a normal broody goth teen and not the villainous Prince they had grown accustomed to. Ahiru was practically bubbling with cheer at the sight of the happy family. She stood next to Fakir whom still had his arm wrapped possessively around her waist. Almost as if her were afraid that if he let go she would turn back into a duck. And finally Autor stood off the the side, more on the outskirts of the group rather than an actual part of it.

"Now we go back into the story... again." Mytho answered. "And this time..." He fixed both Fakir and Autor each with personal glares. "... This time we _stay there_."

Both authors nodded their agreement. They would be just as content to let the stories stay as stories and the real world stay the real world as Mytho was. They said their heart felt good-byes, exchanging words of friendship, apologies and hugs before Mytho and Rue together with their misfit son climbed into an open carriage pulled by twin swans and returned to the story from wince they came.

And in that story they lived contentedly until the end of their days.

...

"It is VERY well written, Mr. Fakir." The teacher slid the manuscript contained within a manila folder across the desk to Fakir.

The dark haired Narrator swelled with pride. Hadn't it been just a few weeks ago that he was in this very same teacher's office being told that his other story wasn't good enough. He seemed to have come full-circle now and was better for it.

"But I'm afraid I can't give you credit for it." The teacher continued.

"_What_? Why not! You have no idea how hard I worked to write that!" Fakir's pride instantly deflated. It seemed just a few weeks ago he had been in this same teacher's office being told that his story wasn't good enough and now here in was again in his creative writing teacher's office being told that his story wasn't good enough. Full-circle, indeed. The universe hated him.

"Its a wonderful story, Mr. Fakir." The teacher explained. "But this was supposed to be your _independent _writing project. I cannot accept something that has been co-written. You and Mr. Autor of the music division did a wonderful job but I'm afraid I can only give _you_ half credit."

Half-credit... fifty percent... fail.

...

THE END

(A/N: And with that its over. Finally. Over and done with. For real this time. -sigh- I feel as though a weight has been lifted up off my shoulders. )


End file.
